


may the wolves

by cole (elianaredfield)



Category: Karlie Kloss - Fandom, Kaylor - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/F, Fight Club AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:03:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elianaredfield/pseuds/cole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“God, you don’t get it, do you?  We’re not from the same world, Taylor.  We’re not even from the same universe.  You spend your weekends at award shows and I spend mine watching people get the absolute shit kicked out of them.  I’ve seen people die from knife wounds.  I’ve seen some shit you can’t even imagine.  I don’t think you have any idea what you’re getting into.”</p><p>“No, I don’t.  But I want to do it anyway.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout @ Emily for proofreading all of this for me. This is definitely going to be a long fic, and I'm posting this after having written the first few chapters of it, so we'll see how it goes from there.
> 
> Trigger Warnings for: Violence, mentions of drinking, drug use, lots of lesbian sex (not all of this is this chapter though lol)

The bar isn’t a particularly high-class one, not the normal sort of place people of her status would go on a regular basis.  It isn’t that it’s a  _ bad  _ place.  It’s not classy, lit up with chandeliers and glass bar-tops.  But there’s no fear that some random patron will slip a knife into her spine at any moment, either.  She accidentally wandered into a place like that once in Australia.  It’s not an experience that she wants to repeat.  

The air is yeasty with the scent of beer, and remixes of top 40 hits throb underneath the sound of conversation and clinking glasses.  There are college students laughing loudly, or grinding on the dance floor, and the usual pack of men watching the lone women in the place like they’re trying to decide the best move to make.  It’s almost movie-level cliche.  But what draws Taylor to this bar in particular is the lighting.  Around the counter and central seating area, the lights are bright and cupped by colorful glass that seems to sparkle.

Where she sits, however, is settled in the back of the bar, lofted up a few feet in an obvious attempt at seclusion.  The lights are dimmed, and Taylor studies herself in the front camera of her phone, liking the way the shadows carve down her cheekbones.  She feels like she might be unrecognizable unless someone happens to look hard, or knows her face well, and that’s a comfort in itself.  

The media attention has drowned her lately, especially since her “breakup” with Adam Wiles AKA Calvin Harris.  To the general public, it’s the fault of different views of the future, of different desires for the pathways of their lives.  The truth, however, is that the contract they’d made had ended, and though the option had been offered to her to extend it until the two year mark, she had quickly turned it down.

Adam is not her favorite person.  He’s not the worst she’s ever met, but he’s definitely not the best, and his occasionally sexist comments and racist jokes had made her spine shudder for months.  She’s relieved to be free of the stress, relieved to no longer have to act.  But the media now has her in an even broader spotlight, and it’s starting to burn her to a crisp.

There are three shots of tequila in a neat line on the weary wooden table in front of her.  She knocks back the first one easier than she would have been able to do a few years prior.  It burns, carving a fire trail down her throat.  But it feels good, too, like she’s been asleep and it’s waking her up like a loud alarm.  Her security on duty, James, sips his Rum and Coke, smirking a little bit around the glass.  One of her eyebrows arches, “What’s so funny?”

“Rough week?” James asks, and the only answer Taylor gives him is a snort.  He’s one of her favorite members of her security team, because while he takes his job seriously, his words are always underlined with a sense of humor.  He has a son named Dax, a preschool boy with a dinosaur obsession and hair the color of Halloween pumpkins.  Taylor gives him presents for Christmas and his birthday every year, and always makes sure to send home a few cookies with James to give to the kid.

He’s needed it lately.  A chest infection has had him in and out of the hospital, and while the prognosis is positive, Taylor is sure it isn’t easy to have a kid in the ER hooked up to machines.  So that’s why James is drinking on the job, and why she isn’t even a little upset about it.  Work is important.  Taylor will never be the person to say that you can get anywhere without hard work.  But family is more important than that, a knot that Taylor has no place untangling.  She will always tell the people she hires to take care of their families first.  She knows very well that Austin or her parents would never come second.

Or her cats, but maybe that’s embarrassing to say out loud.

“Hopefully no one snaps a picture of you knocking back tequila like it’s apple juice,” James says, and a smile tugs at the corner of Taylor’s mouth.  In response she knocks back yet another shot, a single, graceless swallow, and slams the glass on the table in an impressive show of theatrics.

“I’m 26.  I just ‘broke up’ with my boyfriend of over a year.  Let them take pictures,” She sets the two glasses aside, waiting for the burn to settle to embers before she does the third one.  She’s not really feeling the effects of the alcohol yet, but she knows when it hits it’ll be the equivalent of walking in front of one of the taxis outside.  Lazily, she swirls the alcohol in the small glass, watching the way it moves with bored fascination.  She’s sort of regretting not inviting Selena along with her, or even Martha or Gigi.  Drinking is always more fun with friends, and even though she’s older now, Taylor still feels a little dumb drinking by herself.  James is nice company, but she still feels a little bit stupid.

And even has she has the thought, James’ phone buzzes, rattling against the table-top.  She recognizes his wife’s name flashing on the screen, and he reaches towards the phone hesitantly to ignore the call.  But Taylor’s hand shoots out, rests on his knuckles, “You should answer that.  I know you want her to update you on how Dax is doing.”

“It’s too loud in here.  I would have to leave you alone,” Comes the argument.  It’s true.  She hasn’t been without security in years, and it scares her a little bit to think of that.  But she calmly tucks herself into the corner of the booth, letting shadows blanket over her the best they can.  The leather sticks to her thighs under her short skirt.

James looks at her questioningly, and Taylor says in a firm tone, “Take the call.  I’ll be fine alone back here for a few minutes.”

“Taylor...”

“I’ll be  _ fine _ .  I promise,” Taylor’s tone slips into the one she uses in business meetings, punctuated with authority and a snap of her spine into a taut line.  James debates for another second, then murmurs a thank you and slips out of the booth, taking his phone with him.

As soon as he’s gone, Taylor feels incredibly vulnerable, regret caught thick in her throat with startling rapidity.  She has the desire to look over her shoulder.  She wants to melt into the alcohol-stained leather of the seat beneath her.  But she’d encouraged James to leave.  She couldn’t take that back.  

_ You’re safe, you idiot.  Don’t have a panic attack. _

The third tequila shot crawls into her mouth, and she holds it for a moment, letting it sizzle her tongue before she swallows hard.  Her hand shakes a little bit as she sets the glass down.  She closes it around the lip of the table to steady herself, and it helps some.  Even if her mind still does whirl, questioning why she would  _ ever  _ let herself be alone anywhere.

It’s amazing that her world has come to this, that terror will punch her in the roof of the mouth every time she’s away from security.

There’s so much tension stitched into her spine that she nearly screams when someone speaks next to her, “A drink, beautiful?”  She manages only to jump, and turns her head to face the man who had slipped his way over to her table.  He’s tall, and the dim lighting carves his face up in a way that makes him look like a horror movie character.

Taylor swallows and tries to keep her voice cool and steady, “No thanks.  My boyfriend just went outside.”

“Come on, doll.  What he don’t know won’t hurt him,” The man says.  His accent is thick but she can’t place it.  The scent of his cologne slinks across the table and nooses itself around her throat.  He’s closer than she’d like him to be.  

Her first time without security in years, and it’s taken all of two minutes for some creep to find her.  He doesn’t seem to recognize her, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s pressing against the table now, and her back can’t dig any harder into the wall.  It cuts into the notches of her spine, “I said no thank you.”

“I already paid for it.  It would be rude for ya to turn it down,” The man insists, sliding the glass towards her.  It smells fruity, and the scent clots in her nostrils, nearly choking her.  She pushes it back towards him, hoping he doesn’t see the way her fingers twitch like birds.

She’s never experienced this before.  Even when someone had tried to pull her off stage in the middle of the concert, she hadn’t been  _ this  _ scared.  Then, deep down, she’d known someone would rescue her in a matter of seconds.  Now she feels alone, and she might as well be a kitten, weak-spined and clumsy-footed.  She’s never been  _ truly  _ afraid of anyone.  She’s never had a reason to be.  

It’s a feeling she really wishes she had never gotten personal with.

“I really don’t want it,” Taylor responds.  But there it is.  A single crack in the last word, a spiderweb in the ice spreading under her feet.  And he sees it too.  He sees it and he crawls into the opening, sidling up to her in the booth.  Taylor wants to throw up.

He opens his mouth to say something else.  Taylor braces herself, begging silently for James to come back. The first syllable escapes too close to her ear, then all of a sudden, he’s yanked away violently, and it takes Taylor a second to process that the gunshot bang that follows is the sound of him being slammed into the wall.  A few heads turn, but the music is too loud for the general population of the crowd to notice what’s happening.  Taylor somehow expects James to be the one who saved her, but instead, the person holding him against the wall is a girl.  Her hands fist in the front of his shirt, holding it taut and high around his quivering throat.  Teeth pull back from her lips, “Fuck off.”

“This isn’t any of your business, sweetheart,” Comes the retort.  It sounds weak and clipped from the pressure of fabric cutting into his Adam’s apple.  Taylor sees a fist curl at his side, and she opens her mouth to warn the girl, but all of her air catches in her throat and the only thing that tumbles out is a squeak.

The warning isn’t needed, though.  The sleeves of the woman’s button-down are rolled up, hugging her skin just below her elbows.  Taylor can see tattoos, flexing from the muscles that shudder under them.  They twitch when she pulls him closer to her face, the words from her lips so filled up with fire Taylor thinks she can feel the heat on her own face, “I’m going to let go of you, and if you make one wrong move, I’m going to rip your balls off and shove them down your fucking throat.”

There’s no verbal response, but when her hands loosen from his shirt, the man staggers away.  Taylor can see the imprints of clenched fists in the fabric of his shirt.  The girl’s hands don’t uncurl until he’s slunk into the far reaches of the bar, and only then does she turn around.  She slips into the booth across from Taylor, then slides the man’s purchased drink with the back of her hand so it tips and spills heavily-sugared alcohol on to the floor.  Something hysterical in the back of Taylor’s skull buzzes in curiosity if it’ll ruin the floors.

Those thoughts disappear in a sonic boom as the other woman says calmly, “He roofied that.”

“Um..what?” Taylor manages, and her hands start to shake again.  Sweat crawls to the surface, clinging to the hairs at the nape of her neck.

There’s a shrug of a shoulder, “I saw him do it.  It’s not the first time.  He’s a fucking waste of space.”  She meets Taylor’s eyes, and her gaze is green in a way that reminds Taylor of fairy tale forests, “I don’t think it would go over well for this place if  _ the  _ Taylor Swift got slipped some goddamn roofies.”

Taylor doesn’t even have time to focus on the fact the other woman recognizes her.  She still feels smothered, like she’s looking at everything from under a thick blanket.  The weight of it is suffocating her.  Her breaths come a little too harsh and rapid, tearing up a chest that won’t expand the right way.  She tries to speak, her mouth opening and closing, and she realizes that the panic attack she’d been fighting earlier is surfacing again.    _ You could have gotten drugged and taken away to some stranger’s house _ , her brain screams, and the voice promising  _ but you didn’t _ is too small to swallow it up.

The green eyes across from her soften, and a hand finds hers immediately.  The fingers are warm and soft, even with the faint rough hint of callouses.  The sensation is a little bit grounding, but the words that wrap around her do an even better job, “Hey, you’re okay.  I’m going to sit with you as long as you need.  You’re safe.  No one is gonna hurt you, alright?”

After a long, embarrassing few moments, Taylor’s breath stutters to a steadier (but still shaking) pace.  She runs the hand the other woman isn’t holding through her hair, hoping that the sweat sticky on her skin isn’t obvious in the dark.  Teeth grind against her lip while she finds her voice, “Thank you.  So much.”  And then, “I’m sorry about that.  I...”

“Had a panic attack?  I think it’s understandable,” Comes the reply.  Everything about this girl is soothing.  It’s like she knows the exact tone to turn her voice into a meditation track.  It stitches together the frays at the ends of Taylor’s nerves.  Her thumb rubs over Taylor’s knuckles.  The gesture feels too familiar, but in the moment, it’s also the most comforting touch she’s ever experienced.  Taylor’s breath shudders from her lungs.  She closes her eyes for a few seconds, and eventually her stage composure manages to knot itself back together.

“My security uh...he’s outside.  Taking a phone call,” Taylor says.  Her eyes flick over to the door.  It can’t have been more than seven minutes, total.  It feels like it’s been an hour.  She tries not to focus on that, “I’m Taylor.”  

The girl grins, full of teeth, and Taylor’s face flushes as she realizes how dumb of a statement that was.  Her thoughts won’t slow down, racing through her skull like bullets.  The girl recognizes her.   _ Of course she knows your name, dumbass _ .  She still feels a little dizzy, and it takes a moment for her vision to focus the way it’s supposed to.  But the other’s grin is good-natured, and so is the reply, “I’m Karlie.  My sisters are gonna piss themselves when I tell them I met Taylor Swift at a bar.”

Somehow those words spark normalcy.  It’s a hysterical sort of normalcy though, a desperate attempt to do something that erases the past few terrifying minutes.  Taylor digs around in her purse with her trembling hands, and produces a pad of paper and a pen.  She clamps her grip around it, and it steadies her.  This is normal.  This is what she does.  The past few moments never happened.

Her eyes look up at Karlie’s face, flicking over it rapidly, “What are their names?  I’ll give them an autograph.  As uh, as thanks.  For saving my ass.”

“They’re going to freak out even more when I tell them I heard Taylor Swift say ass,” Karlie grins, and that manages a laugh that bubbles up behind Taylor’s teeth.  She appreciates the way she goes along with Taylor’s whiplash mood change.  Karlie pauses for a second, then snorts, “Fuck, they probably won’t even believe me.”

“What are their names?” Taylor repeats.  Karlie spells them out, and Taylor writes them each a little note.  Her handwriting wobbles a little more than usual, and she feels sort of dumb as the weight of what Karlie just rescued her from presses against her shoulders.  This is such a stupid repayment.  But she doesn’t really have anything else she can do.  The tour is over.  It’s not like she can just whip out free meet and greet passes anymore.  This is the most  _ normal _ thing she can do.  

The last note is one she doesn’t address to anyone personally, and Karlie laughs when she reads it.

_ Believe your sister.  I did say ‘ass’. _

Karlie smooths the notes out, digs her wallet from her back pocket, and tucks them neatly inside.  Taylor watches the movement of her hands, and she thinks she sees a rose-garden of bruises on the knuckles of the hand not adorned with a tattoo.  It hits her that perhaps this isn’t the first time Karlie has threatened someone for lacing a drink.  She looks up, and Taylor’s eyes flick towards her empty shot glasses, embarrassed that she’s been staring, “You okay?”

“Kind of freaked out, but yeah, yeah.  I’m good.  Could have been worse, “ Taylor replies, and then her teeth worry the inside of her cheek, so hard she thinks she feels it split, “Are you going to be okay?  He’s not like...going to come after you or something, right?  Bring his buddies and corner you in an alley with baseball bats?”

Karlie’s brows arch, perfect curves along her forehead, “You watch a lot of movies, huh?”  But then she shrugs her shoulder, a non-committal motion, “He’s a dumbfuck.  I doubt he’ll bother, but if he does, I can handle it.”

“No offense, but that sounded like a line from one of the movies you assume I watch a lot of,” Taylor replies, and then adds quickly, “I don’t, by the way.”  Karlie’s eyebrows quirk again, and there’s a sigh, “Okay, okay, I do watch crime dramas.  But those aren’t movies.”

“Still counts,” The grin is back, and it seems strangely bright in this room.  It seems strangely bright who was just threatening bare-handed castration, “I just wanted to make sure I was talking in a way my audience would understand.”  She follows the words with the infamous  _ dun dun dun _ from Law & Order: SVU.  

Taylor feels a little more relaxed now, and the banter only hooks on to her tongue for a few seconds, “Very funny.  You trying to speak in Morse Code?”

Before Karlie can retort, James approaches the table again.  There’s a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, “Make a friend, Miss Swift?” Taylor is confused for a moment, then her brain reminds her of the weight of Karlie’s hand still blanketing her own.  Gently but quickly, she pulls away, jumbling her palms into her own lap.

“I guess you could say that,” Taylor replies, the same moment Karlie goes, “I was just keeping her company.”  Taylor’s eyes flick over into those deep evergreen forests, and she think she sees a hint of that smile still lingering deep in the viridian hues.

Karlie stands up, moving out from the booth with an impressive sort of grace hugging her limbs.  She nods towards James, then flashes Taylor another smile, “I gotta go to work, but it was nice to meet you.  And thanks for the autographs.”  There’s a pause, where Karlie looks around like she’s worried something might leap from the shadows and drag her away, then quickly she adds, “You’re even prettier in person.”

“Oh!  Thank you,” Taylor replies, and it drags heavily out of her mouth, weighted down with more gratitude than she knows how to express.  Karlie gives a firm nod, rocking back on to her heels for a moment.  

And then she’s gone, just like that.

* * *

 

Taylor climbs into her bed, her clothes pooled on the floor, leaving her in just her underwear.  When the soft fabric of the comforter strokes against her bare flesh, she trembles a little bit.  Her bed is a place where she tends to think too much, and tonight is no different.  Without the distraction of the bar, her thoughts come whirling back like a tornado, ripping through her skull until she worries it’ll crack.

All she can focus on are what ifs, horrible potential outcomes if Karlie had never shown up.  Maybe James would have come back inside in time.  Maybe she would have been pressured into choking down that stupid drink.  Maybe she’d be under a stranger’s body right now.  Maybe she’d be dead in a back alley.  There are so many negative veins sprouting out, so many terrifying pathways for her brain to follow.  She starts to shake again, deep in her bones.  

Meredith is not the friendliest cat, more fond of solitude than human company.  But she can sense when Taylor is upset, and where Olivia is oblivious at most times, when Taylor is choking back sobs into the fabric of her pillows, it is always Meredith who comforts her.  Tonight is no different.  Fur muffles Taylor’s nose and glosses her lips, and she wraps an arm around the small body next to her.  Tears soak Meredith’s softly moving side, and she swallows back sobs that shake deep in her chest.  

The soft rattling of a purring cat soothes her eventually, after over an hour, until her panicked tears soften up to nothing but wet breaths.  She falls asleep when the exhaustion weighs her muscles down like wet sand, sinking her into the mattress.  

The dreams that crawl into Taylor’s mind are nightmares, dark and vicious and clawing at her like the monsters she used to fear lived under her bed.  She’s no stranger to bad dreams, to the panic that hums in her consciousness even outside of wakefulness.

What she’s not used to is the green eyes that fizzle into sight in her head, a forest of pine trees that blocks out the nightmares like an impenetrable wall. 


	2. II

“You’ll be a good boy, won’t you?”

Karlie is on her knees, fingers knotted into the thick, mane-like fur around Sunny’s neck.  The German Shepherd is panting, pink tongue lolling out from black lips, and she wrinkles her nose at the smell of his breath.  Dog food doesn’t have a pleasant scent, no matter how you come across it.  But she leans forward anyway, bumping her nose against the midnight fur on his forehead, and her voice lilts high-pitched, “I’ll miss you, bubba.”

There’s a throaty laugh from across the room, and Karlie barely lifts green eyes to glance over at the source.  Cara is sitting on the kitchen counter-top, her legs spread wide open, hands hanging lazily between them.  She’s wearing nothing but underwear, and Karlie gets an eyeful of a lot more than she wanted to see, “Close your legs, you whore.”

“Close your mouth, you hypocrite,” Cara shoots back, her accent thick as she spreads her legs wider, nearly doing the splits on the granite.  Karlie makes an exaggerated face of disgust and turns back to her dog, digging his favorite toy from her bag to wave it playfully in front of his face, “You best not insult my sitting positions, since I’m taking care of your terrifying beast this week.”

Sunny’s teeth clamp down on the toy, and it fills up the room with a loud squeak.  His tail whaps against the floor, and Karlie reaches for the toy, half-heartedly trying to tug it away from him, “Oh yes.  Terrifying beast, you call him, as he chews on his favorite stuffed bunny rabbit right in front of you.  So damn scary.  You’re definitely not a giant pussy or anything.”

“He’s never climbed into the shower with you.  Think about it, Klossy.  You’re just minding your own business, shampooing your hair, then all of a sudden there is a fucking... _ hellhound _ licking your legs.  Do you realize how loud I screamed?  I think my vocal chords are still ruptured,” Cara grips at her shirt, tugging it away from her throat as if to save her perishing throat.  Karlie rolls her eyes and walks over, shoving Cara’s leg to make room for herself on the counter-top next to the other girl.

“Maybe you should have closed the bathroom door,” Karlie points out.

Cara’s eyebrows stumble down her face to hug tight to the top of her browbone, “Whatever.  He’s a monster and you owe me for keeping him so much.”

At that, Karlie tilts her head.  She’s curious despite herself, “I’m going to regret asking this question, but  _ what _ , exactly, do you think I should give you as payment?”

“A couple of orgasms would be nice,” Cara’s grinning mouth chops up the words.  Karlie shoves her hard, slipping off of the counter once again.  Cara laughs, and it’s extremely hard for the taller girl to swallow the smile that wants to break at her face.

She shouldn’t smile, anyway.  Not with the thick purple bruises choking the skin of her jaw, or the cut canyoned into the center of her top lip.  

( _ Damn Kloss, did some cunt finally beat you? _

_ Hell no.  But he didn’t make sending him to the ER very easy _ .)

“That was one time, kiddo,” Karlie replies.

“I’m nine days younger than you.”

“Still counts.”

Karlie digs out the bag of Sunny’s food that she’d brought along and sets it on the far corner of the kitchen counter.  Next to it, she places two bowls decorated with cats, because she appreciates a little bit of irony.  There are a couple of extra chew toys, and Sunny’s favorite blanket.  When she’s satisfied, she turns back to Cara, who immediately snaps her hand away from the dog like she hadn’t just been petting him.  Karlie gives her this one, and doesn’t comment on it, “I should probably head out.  I promised to scrub the bartop for some extra cash.”

“Where are you staying tonight?” Cara asks, and the question isn’t underscored with the same playful tone as the rest of their conversation.  She moves to stand in front of Karlie, and the way those eyes look at her makes the taller girl’s gaze tumble to the floor.  The lie bubbles up in her throat, but obviously Cara recognizes the fizzle of dishonesty by now, because her tone is a little darker, “Karlie.”

Karlie shrugs, “Probably the subway.”

Cara doesn’t look surprised, but a sigh filters out between her lips anyway, “You know you can always stay here, don’t you?”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how drunk are you right now, Cara?” Karlie replies.

Cara seems to understand the relevance of the question, “About a 3?”

“Exactly,” Karlie responds.  It’s not an attempt at shaming the other girl.  Not at all.  It’s a precaution for herself, a fence that she’s built up.  She’s come to accept that her personality is the kind that latches onto addictions with claws and teeth, and she has to rip it bloody to detach herself.  Alcohol has never been the problem.  But her brain trails back to other mistakes stapled into her history, and she knows that the fact Cara is basically never sober could be dangerous.  Even if she doesn’t turn into an alcoholic, she’ll lose the tight grip she’s formed around her judgement.  She isn’t ready to break those fingers.  She doubts she ever will be, “I appreciate the offer, though.”

Cara nods, and it’s a bit more subdued than before.  Her voice is softer, and the accent seems to have gotten heavier to match the mood, “If you ever change your mind, the offer stands.”

“I know,” Karlie smiles.  It’s small, but it’s genuine as it tugs the corners of her lips upwards, “I’m house-sitting for you starting in a week or so though, right?”

Cara rolls her eyes, “Yep.  It’s my yearly 3 month holiday.  If you can call suffering family dinners with my mother a  _ holiday _ .” Karlie pats her shoulder in a lame attempt at sympathy, and Cara sighs, “I’ll let you know when you can come over.  Don’t wreck the place.”

“Damn, I was planning to throw some wild parties,” Karlie retorts.

“Oh, fuck off,” Cara replies, but she leans in to pull Karlie into a hug.

Hands lock around Karlie’s shoulder-blades, and the feeling of comfort is enough to distract her from the way Cara’s shoulder jostles against the bruise on her face.  At least...sort of.  Enough that her lungs don’t deflate a pained hiss when the deep throbbing thrums through her face down to the bone.  She was going to be feeling the echoes of last night’s fight for a while.

As Cara pulls away, Karlie opens her mouth, about to tell her about last night, her strange conversation with Taylor Swift.  But “I saved Taylor Swift from getting drugged and maybe raped” sounds outlandish even in her head, and she’s still not even positive that it really happened (except she is, because she had looked at the autographs again before coming to Cara’s).  It’s a long story, anyway, and she’s already going to be later than she intended at the bar for cleaning duty.  

So instead she scratches behind Sunny’s ears and tugs open the apartment door, “See ya, kid.”

“Nine days, Karlie!”

Karlie makes sure Cara hears her laugh before she closes the door firmly behind her.

* * *

 

Karlie shuffles her backpack from her right shoulder to her left, wincing a little bit.  She had scrubbed the bartop, and all of the tables, and though her wallet is thicker than it had been before, she’s not sure if the soreness throbbing through her right shoulder is worth that.  She’d worked it a little too harshly the night before already, and now the muscles are really beginning to scream in protest.  

That means a few nights off.  A few days of filling her stomach only at lunchtime, or maybe at dinner depending on what she attempts to make of her day.  Besides, it’s not like she isn’t used to the empty gnawing of acid in her gut ( _ Karlie, honey, you’ve gotten so thin _ her mother had said at family Christmas), and she knows that forcing herself to fight will only tear up the muscle and leave her out of commission longer.  Hungry longer.  So she balances the weight of all of her measly provisions on her left shoulder, ignoring the way her backpack carves into her bones, and hurries through the dinner rush crowds in the subway.

There’s a platform where the on-duty police officers don’t resent people like her, where they guard the small collection of tired bodies huddled up in sleeping bags on the floor.  It’s a safe place, and that’s where she’s headed, not really sure what else to do besides sleep then wake up early and try to find some odd jobs to do around in the morning.  The same routine.  The same desperate shuffle for survival.  It isn’t new.  It isn’t beautiful.  It just  _ is _ .

Her hand comes up to wipe at her mouth, a bad habit that she can’t seem to snap the spine of.  The harsh motion of her knuckles against tender flesh pulls blood to the surface, and the stinging swallows up her mouth.  Karlie’s tongue slips out, licking along the crack in her lip, and the taste of blood fills her up like she’s sucking on rotten pennies.

A little still drips down her chin, warm against her skin, and her hand shoots up to catch it on her fingers, trying not to smear her face with it.  Unsure of what to do after it stains her fingerprints, she simply wipes it on her jeans.  The material is black anyway.  And she needs to find a laundromat in the next couple of days.

That’s even more money she needs to budget out.  Fuck.

The thoughts are enough to distract her, to close off her senses so she doesn’t notice the people around her stopping and staring, or the near-audible buzz of commotion.  She doesn’t notice the clicking of heels, or the large men obviously serving as security.  She doesn’t notice anything until she collides like a supernova with a warm body, or until a strong arm hits her chest and shoves her back.  She’s tired, so the blow manages to wind her a little bit, her ribs creaking.

Karlie stumbles, two steps, and then instinctively her feet slide apart into a fighting stance.  She nearly drops her bag and lifts her hands.  But she’s smart enough to look up first, and immediately her spine relaxes some.  The arm that had shoved her belongs to a man with gel-coated hair.  And next to him is a tall, thin girl with blonde bangs cutting neatly across her forehead.  Karlie takes her in, from her burgundy skirt and mustard sweater and physics-defying high heels.  She doesn’t look like she did last night, with the shadows hugging her cheeks and the panic attack shaking her palms.  She looks sophisticated and like the very definition of composed.  Karlie’s lips feel even drier, and all she can taste is the lingering blood behind her teeth, “Taylor.”

“Karlie?” The singer asks, and for some reason it feels warm that the older woman remembers her name.  Karlie smiles for a split second, and she forgets all about her lip and her jaw until the expression tugs at them.  Her lip chokes out more warm blood.  Her jaw cries out sparks.  She barely swallows a flinch, but it comes out anyway when Taylor asks, “Yikes.  Is that from that guy last night?”

Her words are quiet enough that her security won’t hear them, and the two men seem to be respectfully ignoring the conversation anyway.  Karlie reaches up to swipe the blood from her mouth away with her knuckles again, but probably only succeeds at making it worse.  She thinks of the rich, sharp-nosed boy in the ring who had fucked up her face.  There’s no similarity between him and Taylor’s near-assailant at all,, “Nah.  I didn’t see him again last night.  I told you he was nothing to worry about.”

“Then what happened?” Taylor looks concerned, those blue eyes swirling like oceans in a storm.  Karlie realizes in that moment that maybe her actions last night had meant more to Taylor than she thought.  Her face flushes a little bit at the idea that maybe Taylor Swift cares about her, just because she had been in the right place at the right time for once.

And then it hits her that maybe Taylor only cares because she feels  _ obligated to _ , and Karlie’s words fizzle out like wet fireworks behind her tongue.  She shrugs a shoulder, the bad one, and regrets it immediately, “Nothing important.” 

Taylor’s eyes narrow.  She studies Karlie’s face like a map, taking in all the peaks and valleys.  Karlie feels exposed.  Her spine clicks straight in her nervousness, and she runs fingers over her jaw, pressing them into the bruise a little bit.  The spark of pain steadies her, but also makes her cheek twitch from the way she clenches her teeth.  

Heels click as Taylor steps in.  She reaches out, and all of Karlie wants to stagger back, away from the incoming touch.  The only person aside from her family that she allows to touch her anymore is Cara.  At least outside of the ring.  Every other touch comes from bone-spear knuckles.  She doesn’t expect Taylor’s touch to hurt at all, and that’s what scares her about the potential.  It’s  _ unfamiliar _ , and Karlie survives because she knows what to predict when she needs it most.

But she stands stiff, and Taylor’s fingers rest under her chin, tilting her head upwards.  Wrinkles of worry join hands at the corners of her lips, “Right.  You sure about that?  Because it doesn’t look like it’s nothing important.”

Her hand scales sideways some, grazing the bruise, and this time Karlie can’t fight the way her body snaps as she flinches.  It hadn’t really hurt at all.  It just felt strange.  But obviously Taylor doesn’t understand that, because those lines on her face just carve deeper.  Karlie wonders if this is some sort of weird repayment, if Taylor would spare her a second glance at all if Karlie hadn’t been there for her last night.

Her voice is hard, and she’s proud of that single show of strength, “Well it is.”

There’s no explanation she can give, though.   _ Don’t talk about fight club, Karlie _ .  It’s a movie cliche, for sure, but it’s also a silent source of security.  Fight club isn’t legal.  They’re lucky that the owner of the bar lets them hold it in the basement.  Telling anyone who isn’t a member is a risk to them all, a risk of handcuffs clinking and blue-red-white lights blinding.  That’s why they don’t use their real names.  That’s why they don’t share personal information, even if they sometimes share beds.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Taylor’s tone is so tender, so soft...and Karlie is kind of scared of it.  Because she’s heard people fake that gentleness, and she doesn’t know if Taylor is really genuine or not.  She thinks that it might be more terrifying that she  _ could _ be showing genuine concern right now.  She’s not used to that, either.

Not knowing what to predict can be deadly, she reminds herself.

“No,” Karlie promises.  Then her tongue twitches, tugs...and betrays her, “I’ve had worse.”  It sounds like a cry for pity, for help, even though she doesn’t mean it to be.  It’s supposed to be a statement.  It’s an honest fact.  There’s a knife scar above her left hip, a punctuation of truth.  She’s had  _ much  _ worse.  

Taylor’s face tumbles through a series of expressions in a matter of seconds.  Karlie feels like she’d need a slow-motion video to interpret them all.  She swallows thickly and watches the way Taylor’s lips twitch, the way that her eyebrows seem to slide off-course.  Her hand doesn’t leave Karlie’s jaw, and the taller girl is afraid to move even a little bit, either to press closer or push it away.  She feels like they’re suspended in time, and everyone around them is trapped outside of this sphere of strange, crackling energy.

After a moment, Taylor pulls her hand away, tucking it at her side.  Karlie’s jaw twitches, as though to follow the touch, and she hopes the subtle motion wasn’t obvious.  Her mind whirls like a maelstrom.  Her body stands tight in defiance.  A hysterical part of her considers the possibility of just shoving past Taylor and running away, but the blonde’s expression has changed again, and Karlie doesn’t know what to do.  The blue eyes look grey now, like the way the sea crashes into the rocks in winter.  

She looks down at Taylor’s neck so the rapids won’t drown her.

“I...” Taylor starts, then pauses.  Karlie can see her throat work as though it’s sorting out the words she wants to say, “If you need somewhere  _ safe _ to stay, I have guest bedrooms.”

Emphasis echoes in the word ‘safe’.  Karlie is confused by a moment, the offer so quietly massive that it physically rocks her back on her heels.  Her nervous hand wipes her mouth again.  Her knuckles come away cherry-stained.  She doesn’t understand at first, her thoughts slamming viciously into the sides of her skull in a masochistic attempt at understanding.

Then finally it clicks, and there’s nothing gentle about the realization.

_ I’ve had worse. _

And then the response.

_ Somewhere  _ **_safe_ ** _. _

Karlie realizes that Taylor thinks the source of her injuries is a boyfriend, or a husband, or a man with hard hands and no self-control.  She realizes Taylor assumes her the victim, even after last night.  And the thought is offensive at first.  She wears a 30-fight streak to her name, hides a lioness beneath her skin.  She is not a victim.  She is not the one being broken.  She has broken bones and put people in hospitals and...

Her mouth opens in protest, “It’s not like that.”

But then the reminder surfaces, that she can’t explain what it  _ is _ like.  Someone like Taylor Swift would probably report a fight club that leaves girls like Karlie painted bruise-purple, even if they promise they wanted it.  So she’s left breathing in and out a little too harshly, her nails biting into her palms as they curl into fists.  She’s left without words, without the ability to clarify.

“I just wanted to offer.”

And god, of course Taylor has to sound so sweet when she talks, like even her speaking voice is music.  Karlie does step back this time, because she can almost feel a physical warmth tugging around her, constricting her like a scarf.  Now is when she should run.  Now is when the fight is no longer on her side.

“I couldn’t ask that,” Comes the defense.  It’s weak, brittle, and Karlie knows it is.  She’s so scared of the kindness, so thrown off by the weight of Taylor offering to let her  _ stay at her house _ .  It’s for misguided reasons, because of misunderstandings.  But even then, there’s nothing small about it.  The sheer magnitude of it is overwhelming.

_ A bed, Karlie.  A real fucking bed.  You haven’t slept in one of those in...what, three months? _

_ Food.  You’ve read the magazines where she talked about loving to cook.  You haven’t had food that’s good for you since you went to visit your parents in December. _

_ You’ve loved her music since the first album.   _

_ How could anyone turn down an offer like this, you fucking idiot? _

Karlie’s thoughts are still whirling.  This is dangerous.   This is all so dangerous.  She hopes Taylor will rip it away from her so the option can no longer tempt her.

But instead Taylor gives her a soft little smile, “You aren’t asking.  I’m offering.  It’s completely different.”

That’s when Karlie’s mouth takes over and spits out all of her rationality on to the ground.

That’s when her tongue develops its own thoughts and makes a choice.

Quiet, staring at her feet, but somehow, the single word at least spares her the embarrassment of not carrying any pride.  It’s still strong.

“Okay.”


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes. Sorry this took me so long, guys. But here you go!

“Taylor.”

The grip on her arm is firm, and Taylor steps into it so it doesn’t tug at her skin.  Karlie is in the back seat, out of earshot, and she can see James’ worried eyes even behind his sunglasses.  She knows what’s coming even before he speaks, and she braces herself for the words, “What are you doing?”

Words are her thing.  Words are the _one_ thing that she has absolutely control over, the one thing she can break and put back together the way she wants.  But she doesn’t have any good explanations for this, and she knows it.  She sighs, lets her lungs empty themselves out.  And then blue eyes flicker up to his face.  She composes herself the way she knows how to do so well now.  There are no paparazzi around right now, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be soon.  They stick to her like she’s a flytrap, but she doesn’t know who slathered her with the honey.

She lifts her hand to her mouth to chew at her nails, and immediately forces it back down by her side.  It’s a habit she’s still trying to break from her childhood.  It’s the reason she keeps her nails so short, and always painted.  The process of painting them perfectly again once they chip is motivation not to bite them as often, “So, last night...you left to take that phone call--which was completely fine, by the way--and some guy came over and started harassing me.  Tried to force me to take a drink and all that.”

“Taylor...I...” James starts, sounding embarrassed, and Taylor smiles at him gently and genuinely.

Her hand briefly settles on his shoulder, “Hey, it’s okay.  Your kid is the most important thing.  I’m not mad at you.  And anyway, it’s fine. Karlie came and threatened him and then sat with me until he left.  It turns out she saw him roofie my drink and wanted to protect me.”  Taylor presses her lips into a thin line, sucking the top one into her mouth a little.  The words taste sour to speak out loud, and her heart starts to pick up speed again despite the fact she’s entirely safe now.  Her eyes scale over to the SUV, to the windows the color of leaky nighttime darkness, as though she could see Karlie inside, “That bruise on her jaw...it looks like someone punched her, James.”

“So...you’re letting her stay with you?” He asks, still sounding suspicious.  And Taylor can’t even blame him.  She doesn’t know anything about Karlie.  In fact, one of the only things she is sure about is that the girl has a violent streak, and is strong enough to lift a grown man off his feet.  That’s intimidating to think about, but judging by the purple bleeding across her cheek and the cut in her lip, she isn’t invincible either.  

Maybe Karlie is a serial killer.  Maybe she’ll murder Taylor in her sleep, or steal her cats, or something else horrible.  But all Taylor can see her as is a sweet woman with hard hands and a soft smile, someone obviously being chased by a bad situation that she doesn’t want to talk about.  And Taylor knows she shouldn’t assume, but the swelling on Karlie’s face is shaped clearly like the edge of a fist, and that paired with the skittish conversation in the subway doesn’t give her confidence.

“You saw what she looked like,” is all she offers in response.

There isn’t much else she can say.

James sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and she knows she’s probably aging him an extra few years right now.  She makes a note in her head to buy him something nice; maybe a new watch, or a new wallet.  His voice is low, because there are people sort of crowding around now, distant but parted like the Red Sea, “What makes you think this is safe?  I know you feel like you owe her for last night, but this seems a little extreme.”

Taylor pauses at that.  Is that all she’s doing?  Is her only motivation obligation?  Generally she likes to do things just to help people, but she’s never really been in a situation like this before.  It hits like a bullet that there’s a very real chance her offer wouldn’t extend this far if Karlie hadn’t sat with her last night and held her hand while a panic attack ripped through her body.  She almost admits that maybe her security guard is right on that front, but then her mind reminds her of her dream about those green eyes, and she shakes her head, “It’s not just that.  I _want_ to do this.”

“Well, Ben will be across the hall tonight if you need anything,” James concedes, finally, and Taylor knows it’s partially because the crowd is growing a little bit.  He sounds tired.  He sounds worried.  And even though she doesn’t think it’s really necessary right now, she appreciates the fact he’s concerned about her well-being even when he’ll be off the job.

“It’ll be fine,” She says, and she hopes it sounds like a promise.

James reaches for the door handle to open it for her, then pauses, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I do.”

But as Taylor climbs into the backseat next to a silent Karlie, she realizes that she has absolutely _no idea_ what she’s doing at all.

 

* * *

 

Karlie doesn’t talk the entire drive, and after about ten minutes, Taylor gives up on making conversation.  Each ignored attempt makes her cringe internally with regret.  Her eyes keep flickering over to the other girl, watching the way Karlie stares out the window with her eyebrows furrowed, the way that hand keeps going up to her mouth to wipe at her lip even though it reopens the wound each time.  She wonders where the confidence from last night disappeared to, and she almost asks before she realizes that if what she _thinks_ happened did, then Karlie probably is not in the mood to speak.  

Thankfully, the traffic is not as dense as it can be in the city.  When they arrive, James guides them up the stairs to Taylor’s apartment door, hands off the shift to Ben, and squeezes Taylor’s shoulder firmly.  It’s a goodbye, but also a silent reminder, a _be careful_.  She gives him a tiny nod in return, then unlocks the door and steps inside quickly so she can hold it open for Karlie.  The taller girl has been staring at her feet, but she looks up finally when they enter, and her mouth tumbles open as she takes in everything.  Taylor watches the massive inhale she takes, and it filters out in a quiet, breathless, “Holy fuck.”

“Is that a good reaction or...?” Taylor asks, smiling, glad that Karlie has finally spoken.

The armor seems to clatter to the floor, shoved off by Karlie’s amazement.  She steps farther into the house, spinning slowly, her eyes blown wide on her face.  Her jaw seems to be hinged open, and she nearly backs into a couch.  Her hand reaches out to touch it, feeling the soft material, and a bark of almost hysterical-sounding laughter escapes her, “Holy _fuck_.”

“A woman of many words,” Taylor teases, and Karlie finally takes her gaze off of the decor to look at Taylor.  Her mouth closes, but not completely, and a smile overtakes it instead.  It’s giant and beaming and seems to almost glow, and Taylor’s thoughts repeat Karlie’s sentiments: _holy fuck_.

“You live here _alone_?  This place could be a hotel, man!” Karlie nearly runs into the den, planting her hands on the pool table.  She picks up the 8 ball with her right hand, rolling it in her palm and looking over at Taylor.  She shakes her head in disbelief, like she’s never seen a pool table before and she’s looking at some mythical, newly-discovered species, “You have a pool table in your house.  What else?  Is there a bowling alley in here somewhere?”

Taylor grins, feeling energized by the energy flickering off of the other woman in rolling waves, “I’m not a big fan of bowling.”

“Probably a good choice.  I’d kick your ass,” Karlie replies, and the banter is strangely familiar in nature.  She immediately spins away to go look in the living room instead, and Taylor trails after her, not wanting to miss a moment of the blatant amazement.  She realizes that even if Karlie is middle class, Taylor’s apartment is probably pretty impressive.  It’s strange to think that once upon a time, she would have been amazed by where she lives now.  She’s gotten so used to the immaculate...it doesn’t really impress her anymore.  Karlie’s reactions are sort of refreshing.  They make her feel less famous, and in a way that’s comforting.  Grounding.

“I dropped a bowling ball on my foot when I was 12.  I’ve hated it ever since,” Taylor explains, as Karlie gapes at the TV overpowering one of the living room walls.  Taylor thinks she hears her breathe out another _holy fuck_.

Whatever the other girl is going to say is interrupted by a mewl.  Taylor recognizes it without looking down that it’s Meredith.  She expects the cat to stare at them for a minute then pad away, entirely disinterested, as always.  But then she hears it.   _Purring_ .  Now she’s the one who’s amazed, as she studies the way Meredith rubs against Karlie’s legs, weaving in and out.  Karlie grins, leaning down to pick the cat up, and to Taylor’s shock, Meredith _lets_ her, not even looking angry as Karlie’s hand rubs behind her ears, “Hey, Meredith.  It’s nice to meet you.”

“Wait, wait, you know her name?” Taylor asks, the words catching her off-guard almost as much as the cat’s unusual friendliness.  Karlie had recognized her last night, but so did most of the world.  The fact that Karlie knows the name of her cat means that there’s even more familiarity than Taylor thought, and she’s not exactly sure why that makes her blood feel hot under her skin.

Karlie holds Meredith close to her chest, and the purring continues to rumble like quiet thunder through the room, “I follow you on Instagram.”  Her head tilts down a little bit, studying Meredith’s face, “I thought you were supposed to be mean.  Has Taylor been lying about you on the internet, baby?”

“She usually is mean!” Taylor protests, shaking her head in dull amazement, “I can’t believe she’s acting like this.”

Karlie just grins, but suddenly she looks around, confused, “Where’s Olivia?”

“Sleeping somewhere, probably” Taylor replies.  Karlie sets Meredith down gently, and Taylor repeats, “I can’t _believe_ this.”

Karlie just smiles, and Taylor sees her lip bubble up with a little more blood.  It reminds her that this isn’t a normal situation, that she doesn’t just have a friend over, and she nods towards the stairs, “I’ll let you put your stuff in one of the guest rooms?” Karlie tugs her bag a little higher up on her shoulder, as though she forgot she had it at all, and gives Taylor a nod.

“Lead the way.”

Taylor toes off her heels at the bottom of the stairs and carries them up with her, tossing them into her room through the partially-opened doorway.  She notices that Karlie doesn’t even look in her room, and she figures that the other girl is trying to respect her privacy even though Taylor literally invited her to stay in her home.  It’s strange.  No one ever respects her privacy, and she appreciates it deep in her chest.  She opens the door directly across the hall, flipping on the light.

The bed is a king, with a deep red comforter and cream colored sheets.  The curtains match the sheets, and the furniture is deep mahogany.  There’s a bathroom attached, and a walk-in closet with the door shut tight (because Taylor has watched far too many crime dramas to be okay with open closet doors).  The TV is much smaller than the one in the living room, but it’s still considerably large, and Karlie turns to gape at her, “I’m sleeping in _here_?”

“What, did you think I would put you on the couch?” Taylor asks.

Karlie’s teeth gnaw at her lower lip.  She doesn’t look at Taylor as she shrugs one shoulder, “Your couch would probably be nicer than some beds I’ve slept in.”  If there was any vulnerability in that statement, it shatters when Karlie straightens her spine.  She looks over at Taylor again then, and the impressed expression is back, though it does seem a little less neatly composed.

Taylor doesn’t ask.

“You can just drop your stuff in here, and then we’ll have dinner, alright?” Taylor suggests.

Karlie’s knuckles turn white as she grips the strap of her backpack.  Then she sets it on the bed, like she doesn’t want to let go of it, “Sounds good.”

Taylor doesn’t ask about that, either.

 

* * *

 

 

“So...you could have a personal chef, but you do all of this yourself?”

Karlie is perched on the edge of the kitchen counter.  She’d changed into a pair of shorts.  They remind Taylor of frat boy shorts, and they honestly probably are, considering they look straight off a rack from the men’s section.  She still has that stupid button down open more than what’s probably appropriate, the sleeves rolled up, her legs spread so she can rest her hands between them.  And when she bothers to look closely, Taylor can see the hint of tattoos.  Several on the back of her legs, one on her thigh.  She finds herself curious how many, exactly, the other girl has.  She decides they aren’t familiar enough yet for her to ask. And looking is dangerous, considering the cutting knife she has in her hand.

Her knife thumps against the cutting board in a steady rhythm as she juliennes the carrots they’re going to be eating, “I like to cook.  It’s relaxing.”  The edge of the knife scoops the carrots into a pile with the onions, and it’s true.  She does like the rhythm of it, the steady pattern, the focus she’s forced to have with the knife in her hand.  It’s something she can have control over, and control steadies her when she gets that stupid tight feeling in her chest that crushes her so often lately.

Karlie shifts some, and her shorts slide up higher.  Taylor sets the knife on the board, suddenly not trusting her focus to be steady enough, and tries not to stare too obviously at the ink on Karlie’s thigh.  It’s a mixture of animal skulls and flowers, beautiful in a way that’s also haunted with morbidity, and Taylor likes it more than she expects to.

“I like to bake,” Karlie swings her feet, a little bit awkwardly, “I just haven’t had an opportunity to do it much in a while.”

Taylor looks up to meet her eyes, grinning brightly, excited that they’re suddenly standing on common ground, “I love to bake too!  I’m more of a cook, but baking is a hobby.  When I had the fans at my houses to listen to the albums, I always baked a shit-ton of cookies for them.”

“A shit-ton, huh? You know, you swear a lot more than I would have expected,” Karlie says, smiling a little bit wryly at the blonde.

Taylor leans back against the opposite counter-top, “I was just trying to fit in.  Considering you, y’know, use _fuck_ for every part of speech.”  Not that she minds.  It’s sort of endearing, the way Karlie’s mouth can go from spitting out curses to smiling until her lips split in a matter of seconds.  It’s endearing, and she hates herself a little too much for focusing in on the details of people.  Because she definitely is focusing too much on Karlie, and she’s starting to forget the fact that Karlie is here at all because of the bruise shaped like a hand on her jaw.

“How do you use it as an adverb?  Fuckily?” Karlie is grinning again, her nose wrinkling a little bit, and Taylor is sort of really into it.  Shit.  “Taylor cuts the vegetables fuckily.”

Taylor’s expression turns into mock offense, “Wow.  Look at these perfect knife cuts.  Look at the way they’re all the same size.  That’s attention to detail.  That’s culinary crafstmanship.  Normal people don’t julienne their vegetables with this much precision, Karlie.”

“I feel like you watch a lot of Food Network,” Karlie retorts.  Taylor rolls her eyes, fighting back a smile that hangs behind her lips, and returns to chopping up the last of the carrots.  She hears Karlie shift off the counter, “Can I help with anything?  I kind of feel like a giant dick just sitting here watching.”

Taylor considers giving her something simple, but the mention of baking had seemed to excite Karlie a little bit, at least for a minute.  And she likes that.  There’s something distant about the other girl, something strange and far-off in her eyes, and Taylor doesn’t like it.  She doesn’t like to see people looking like veterans in places that aren’t even warzones.  So she waves her hands towards one section of the kitchen cabinets, “There are a bunch of ingredients in there.  Eggs and butter are in the fridge.  You should bake us something for dessert.”

“I’ll make sure to do it fuckily.”

When she laughs, Taylor nearly chops off her own finger.

 

* * *

 

They’re sitting on the couch, piled up in pillows and blankets.  Karlie is in a pair of Taylor’s pajamas: shorts decorated with penguins and a matching blue tank top.  The skinny strap of the top is hanging halfway off of Karlie’s shoulder, clutching at the muscular part of her upper arm.  Taylor isn’t sure if she should look at the range of her collarbones or the way that a shadow pools above the hint of her breasts.  Or maybe she should look at the tattoo, the intricately designed face of the tiger staring back at her, and the way that it’s hidden in a wreath of roses that trail all the way down to Karlie’s fingertips.  

Or maybe she should look at her face, like a respectful human being.

Taylor hasn’t had any sexual contact with anything except the vibrator in her nightstand drawer in fourteen months, and it’s obvious it’s taking a toll on her mental state.  Karlie is stunning, but she isn’t here because of that.  She’s here because there’s something she’s hiding, something she needs help hiding _from_.  If Taylor hadn’t been sure before, she is now.  During dinner, Karlie had eaten with one arm halfway around her plate, stuffing food in her mouth like her entire body was hollow and needed to be filled.  Like she was expecting it to disappear at any moment.

And now Taylor can’t help thinking back to Karlie’s amazement at every little thing about her apartment, about the fact she’d accepted the offer so quickly.  She realizes she knows nothing about the woman in front of her except for her name and a few minor details.  She has no idea about her situation.  She has no idea where she lives, or what she comes from, and it’s strange.

People are stories, and Taylor wants to know about Karlie’s.  

But for now she settles on: “These cookies are seriously the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Except it’s not nearly as coherent, because her mouth is stuffed full of chocolate-y, gooey deliciousness, and it’s sticking to her tongue in a way that makes it hard to talk.  A few crumbs fall down her chin, and Taylor catches them in her palm.  Karlie’s bite is more graceful, and she chews lazily and swallows the whole thing before she talks, “I’m going to guess you just complimented me?”

“Yes,” Taylor says, once she can finally talk.  She picks up another cookie and waves it around in the air to make a point, “These are like mini mouth orgasms.”

Karlie’s eyebrows shoot up, “First you swear, then you talk about orgasms.  How else are you going to surprise me, Taylor Swift?”

“I said _mouth_ orgasms.  Not regular orgasms,” Taylor retorts, and she sees a smirk twitch at the edge of Karlie’s mouth.  There’s a spark of something flirtatious there.  Or, at least...Taylor thinks there is.  Maybe she’s just reading into it.

She’s always ended up with guys because it’s safer.  There were girls in high school (sort of...because the words _pillow princess_ still kind of follow her around from those days), and a couple of flings with female friends.  Nothing more than that, though.  But she still appreciates women aesthetically, probably more than she does with men, and god if her brain isn’t latching on to Karlie.  She’s grateful, at least, that she can be confident that isn’t why she’d invited the girl home.  She’d been so focused on the injuries she hadn’t really paid attention to Karlie’s appearance at all until they were making dinner.

But now she can’t stop.

 _You’re turning into a teenage boy.  Soon you’re going to grow a dick.  How will you explain_ that _to the media?_

Taylor’s internal hysterics are interrupted by Karlie stretching out her legs and leaning back a little bit, causing the strap of the tank top to slip even farther down.  The normal smile isn’t there, but the smirk that’s replaced it is almost better, “I read a news article that you’re still a virgin one time.  Like...last year.  Until you met Calvin...er...Adam.  Whatever you call him.  So are you sure you know about those regular orgasms?”

Karlie’s teasing.  It’s obvious by the lilt in her tone, and Taylor decides to give it right back, “More than you would expect.   _Trust_ me.”

There’s a pause, where Karlie’s expression jumbles into a mixture of amusement and disgust.  Her nose wrinkles up, but her eyes still glow like a thick evergreen forest, and she shakes her head a little bit, “Don’t tell me the details.  I’m not interested in hearing about your gross hetero escapades.”

“What if I talk about the non-hetero ones?”

And that’s where Taylor wins.  Karlie opens her mouth to reply, but she kind of just freezes instead, looking shocked.  Taylor looks back at her smugly, even though her heart is pounding rapidly in her chest at the fact she just admitted that to someone, a _stranger_.  Tree is going to kill her.  But Karlie is just a girl, and even if she tells someone, Taylor doubts anyone will believe her, or that it’ll gain any traction.  So she tries to steady her skittering heart, and focuses on the smirk she’s throwing at the other woman instead.  

Finally, Karlie’s expression grows impressed, and all she responds with is a single word.

“Damn.”

Taylor suddenly doesn’t regret her decision as much as she knows she should.

 

* * *

 

Karlie is in bed, and she feels strange, like she’s floating outside of her body.  Her back is melting into the mattress, her head burrowed into pillows.  The comforter is heavy.  But though she can feel it, she can’t really _feel_ it.  There’s a disconnect, like she’s floating a few inches away from where her body is supposed to be.  She’s felt fine all day.  In fact, it’s been the best day she’s had in a long time.  

But now it’s all sinking in.  She’s in Taylor Swift’s house, in her guest bedroom.  She had joked with her on the couch and baked cookies in her oven.  She’d pet her cats and changed in one of the bathrooms.  She was wearing Taylor’s pajamas.  It doesn’t feel real.  None of it does.  And she realizes that maybe she’s panicking about waking up and all of it being gone.  Or maybe she just isn’t sure how to handle the overwhelming confusion, the sudden turn her life had taken.  She wants to text Cara, but she can’t bring herself to, and her phone is off on the nightstand.

She can’t text her because she feels guilty.  Because she’s in this situation where Taylor thinks she’s a victim.  Because she doesn’t know that Karlie took the bruises for the hundred extra dollars now in her wallet.  She doesn’t know that there’s no one abusive, or cruel.  No one except herself, maybe.  But there’s no reason she should be here.  She doesn’t deserve pity, because she _wanted_ the injuries.  She wanted to fight.  She should be in the subway right now, because that’s what she deserves.

Karlie needs to tell her the truth, and she knows it.  But honesty has crumbled to dust in her hands the past few years.  She doesn’t really know how to get it to come out of her mouth anymore.  There’s been so much lying in her life.  So much avoiding the truth and avoiding connection and avoiding getting close to people.  Being honest is terrifying, and she feels sick thinking about it.  But she also feels sick thinking about how she’s taking advantage of Taylor’s kindness through a misunderstanding.

She needs to tell the truth, for once in the past few years.

But for now the bed is warm, and she hasn’t slept in one this soft her entire life.

She isn’t strong enough to fight that.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is totally just filler, but the next two are already written, and they're where shit really starts to get interesting. So hopefully you all can deal with a little bit more filler, because I promise the exciting parts are going to get here soon.

Karlie rolls over in bed, the comforter catching around her hips.  Her spine buzzes as she stretches and twists her muscles.  There’s a soft groan as she tugs one of the extra pillows over her face, smothering herself with the scent of detergent and her own shampoo.  She can feel in her body that it’s early, and that she’s barely slept, but the exhaustion in her muscles hasn’t transferred to her mind, and she’s wide awake.

With a soft sigh, she throws the pillow to the side and kicks the blankets away from her legs, feeling around for her phone.  She brings it to her face, squinting as the screen lights up.  7:30 a.m..  Another groan, but she forces herself to sit up, deciding that the whining of her bladder and the growling in her stomach can probably be attended to.

Even Taylor Swift’s guest bathroom is well decorated.  The rugs and the shower curtains match.  The faucets are immaculate.  Karlie feels a little strange about using the toilet.  She feels even stranger when she realizes there’s a picture of Ed Sheeran on the wall staring at her.  Maybe Taylor didn’t think through  _ every  _ placement very well.   It’s enough to make her laugh and shake her cluttered thoughts a little bit, though.

There’s a toothbrush from the night before, and Karlie scrubs her teeth extra well, because for some reason she feels like she owes Taylor Swift minty-smelling breath.  She splashes cold water on her face to make her skin feel less heavy, rubbing her palms along her cheekbones.  She’s lost a few pounds, she realizes, because the bones in her face are a little more prominent than they should be.  Considering how thin she is anyway, that’s not necessarily a good thing, and as she lifts up her (no, Taylor’s) shirt, she can see the edges of her ribs like tiny mountains.

At the thought of being thin, her stomach rumbles like thunder, vibrating, and she makes the trek to the kitchen.   _ Be a good guest, Karlie.  Make her breakfast.   _

She stops to pet the cats, scratching their ears and attempting to purr back at them.  Meredith even licks her toes.  It makes Karlie feel good, to know that this so called diva of a cat likes her enough to lick her feet.  She makes sure to spend an extra moment stroking Meredith’s soft, furry back, then steps into the kitchen.

It’s bigger when it’s just her inside of it, and Karlie wipes her hand over her mouth, like always.  It aches, and she remembers her lip.  Thankfully, it just throbs and protests a little bit but doesn’t decide to split back open.  She’s gotten tired of the way that blood tastes in her mouth, and besides, it probably wouldn’t merge well with the cool, crisp spearmint of the toothpaste she’d just used.

The cats’ food dishes sit neatly in the corner, and Karlie debates for a moment if it would be too  _ familiar _ for her to fill them up.  But Olivia is whining and headbutting the muscles in Karlie’s calves, and she decides that even if it’s too familiar, she can blame the kitten for whining and guilting her into feeding them rather than waiting for Taylor to wake up.  So she pours them food, washes her hands in the sink, and then makes an adventure into Taylor Swift’s pantry.

It’s quite an adventure, too.  It’s probably the Mount Everest of pantries, stocked high and full with endless ingredients for endless purposes.  There’s probably a pretty good chance of surviving the zombie apocalypse for a few months just with the food in the pantry, and it’s so overwhelming Karlie feels like it backhanded her.  It takes a few moments to gather herself and think through breakfast recipes she knows how to cook well, but finally she decides on one that she can only hope the pop star will enjoy.

Karlie isn’t particularly organized about anything, ever, so when she finally has all of the ingredients out, they scatter haphazardly over the countertop in a whirlwind of apparently impossible-to-distinguish chaos.  She knows exactly where everything is, but an innocent bystander would likely be helpless in their attempt at figuring it out.

Karlie is sprinkling cinnamon on the bread and preparing to mix it with the eggs and vanilla in a sizzling frying pan when she hears footsteps enter the kitchen.  Taylor’s voice is an even darker, more woodsy drawl when it’s stitched up by sleep, “So, um, did a tornado tear through my kitchen while I was sleeping?”

“Rude,” Karlie replies, not even looking at her as she focuses on browning both sides of the French Toast.  Taylor isn’t wrong though.  There are banana peels all over the counter, and Karlie had spilled some cinnamon a few minutes ago and not cleaned it up yet.  She feels a little bad for it now, and makes a note to clean everything up before she allows herself to eat.

She doesn’t get a chance, though, because Taylor walks over and starts gathering things up.  Karlie nearly drops the now-finished French toast with how quickly she dives over to stop her, “No!  I got it.  I made the mess, I’ll clean it up.”

Taylor laughs, and Karlie looks at her for the first time this morning.  Her blonde hair is fluffy and messy around her head, like Simba in his awkward teenage years.  Her cheeks are a little flushed and puffy from being pressed against pillows all night, and her skin is entirely bare of makeup.  Karlie hates that she’s caught off guard for a second by how beautiful Taylor is, but she’s not unfamiliar with beautiful girls, so she keeps her expression neutral as she gently grabs Taylor’s arm to stop her.

Taylor, however, bats her away, stepping out of reach with a handful of banana peels, “I can clean up!  You’re making me breakfast, after all.”

Karlie molds her expression into one of confusion, “Wait, you wanted me to make you breakfast, too?”

Taylor pauses for a moment, eyebrows furrowing.  She realizes quickly that there’s a smile battling the corner of Karlie’s mouth, and her confused expression grows annoyed (but her eyes are sparkling, and  _ goddamn _ , Karlie thinks,  _ is that what the middle of the ocean looks like? _ ).  Taylor slaps Karlie’s cheek lightly with a peel, “You’re a jerk.”

“I don’t have to give you the food I made for you,” Karlie retorts, grinning as Taylor huffs and quickly cleans everything up.  She pulls out plates, and Karlie carefully sets up their peanut butter and banana French Toast sandwiches, a combination of ingredients her mother had often thrown together because it was one of the only thing four sisters could agree on on those early school mornings.

They settle at the table, plates in front of them, and Taylor takes a bite of her food.  She makes a small sound, one that Karlie can’t help but question if it occurs in more intimate settings, and around the mouthful she mumbles, “I’m going to keep you around just to cook things for me.”  Karlie grins at her, pleased with herself, surprised she feels so warm about making Taylor Swift happy.

She’s been a fan for years, but it’s still so strange to be in her  _ house _ , and Karlie feels entirely like a lost, confused puppy, half-trapped in some sort of beautiful dream universe that she doesn’t want to wake up from.  She wonders if Taylor can sense that Karlie is still trapped halfway in amazement as they make small-talk, laughing with strange ease and even bantering back and forth in a way that Karlie hasn’t done with anyone in a while.

Out of nowhere, though, Karlie is reminded of something from last night, a piece of the conversation that had made her heart pound aggressively against her ribs for a reason she doesn’t want to think about too hard.  There’s a lull in conversation, and Karlie smirks in the way she’s learned to do in order to seem confident, cocking her head to the side, “So, how much are you going to pay me to not go to TMZ and tell them that you’re into girls?”

Taylor, however, doesn’t seem to find it so funny.  Her throat contracts as she quickly swallows a too-large bite of food.  She goes white, her recent laugh fizzling out into a muted, slightly frightened twist of the lips.  Her hands plant firmly on the table, gripping the edge until her knuckles grow pale.  Her expression is serious, “You wouldn’t do that, would you?  Are you serious?  Do you want money?  I will literally pay you right now not to tell.”

“No!  Taylor, it was a joke.  Do you really think that me, someone who  _ also likes girls _ , would be morally okay with outing someone else?” Karlie feels a little panicky now, upset that she’s upset the girl who has offered her her home and her food and her guest bedroom.  Her eyes are wide and she feels like she needs to do  _ something _ , so she reaches across the table and pries one of Taylor’s hands from the edge of the table so she can squeeze it with her own, “It was a joke.  I promise.  I was just...trying to be funny.  I wouldn’t betray your trust about that.  I know it would be a shitstorm if people found out, and you’ve...you’ve been so nice to me the past couple of days.  I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Taylor relaxes visibly, squeezing Karlie’s hand in return.  The touch lingers long enough for Karlie’s fingers to feel static-y, and even when Taylor pulls away, the slight sparks still linger right beneath her skin.  She doesn’t know what to think about that either.  Taylor takes a heavy breath, looking embarrassed, “I have to be cautious, because a lot of people really would go sell that story to TMZ for a few thousand dollars and not care about what happens to me.  I just...have to be careful, you know?”

“I just didn’t think about you not finding it funny.  I’m sorry,” Karlie replies.

Taylor sighs, her face momentarily exhausted like she’s way older than 26, a middle-aged woman caught in a young adult’s body.  Then she smiles, and the stress melts away some.  She still looks older, but she looks more like the girl who spends almost all of her time on massive stages, “Not a lot of people know about that.  My family, and a couple of my friends, but I’ve never  _ dated _ a girl, just...flings.  So I’ve never tried to define it and that makes it weird to explain it.”

“I only like girls,” Karlie replies, hoping her smile is comforting.  She takes another bite of her breakfast, chewing slowly to give herself a moment to get over her still-lingering shock about all of this.  She’s talking to  _ Taylor Fucking Swift _ about hook-ups with girls, and she honestly won’t be surprised if she does wake up from a dream soon, because this is everything 16 year old Karlie Kloss liked to fantasize about.

The subject changes awkwardly, but they make more small talk as they work together to gather the plates and the last of the mess Karlie made.  Karlie dries her hands on a towel, and then her hand goes up to her mouth, again, the same stupid habit, and this time it’s enough to make her lip split open  _ again _ .  Not much, but she tastes the telltale hint of copper, the flavor of old coins, and she quickly tries to lick it away so Taylor won’t see.

But unfortunately, Taylor had been waiting for her to respond to whatever she’d just said, and her eyes narrow with concen.  Karlie reaches, rips off a paper towel, and wets it before holding it up to her mouth to catch the blood, knowing she can’t hide it anyway, and Taylor says, “So...did a girl do that, then?”

It’s obvious what she’s suggesting.  It has been since the subway.  There are fist-shaped bruises on her face, and Karlie, though tall, though well-muscled, is a thin young woman, and it makes it easy to think she can be a victim.  She looks like a victim.  She’s gotten the pitying looks before.  She’s gotten handed fliers for women’s shelters on the street before (and she's gone to them, for the showers if nothing else).  Karlie is well aware of what she looks like, of the reality Taylor is concocting for her inside of her head.

Karlie knows she owes Taylor to tell her, but the past few years of her life have been painted black with dishonesty, and it’s so hard to force it up into her throat now.  It fights her.  It gets stuck.  Lying is so much easier.  That comes out slick and slippery enough that it’s hard to even hold it in.  But she can’t feel okay with that right now, either.

Her head ducks, and she chews on the inside of her cheek for a long moment before she manages, “I really don’t want to talk about that, alright?”

And to Taylor, it probably sounds like confirmation.  Karlie has most likely just answered her unasked questions.  But it’s the most she can give without blatantly lying, at least right now.  And she’s embarrassed by her own cowardice.  She knows Taylor is trying to string words together like she’s so good at doing.  So she interrupts, quickly, hoping she sounds stable, “Can I take a shower?”

* * *

 

Taylor sits on the couch in the den, drumming her fingers on the shell of her favorite acoustic guitar in a way that echoes softly through the room.  She thinks back to the morning, how it was simultaneously nice and disastrous all at once.  Karlie making breakfast and bantering with her had been lovely, and she’d felt like she was hanging out with any of her other friends.  Her own panic and stupid questions had been the worst part.

She can still remember the discomfort in Karlie’s face because it’s burned into her skull.  The nervous flickering of her green eyes, like she was looking for an escape route (except that's something she's done every time she entered a new room, Taylor's noticed, but it had been worse after this morning).  The dip of her usually confident neck.  The softness her voice had suddenly slipped into.  And Taylor hates the cause for those emotions, hates whoever it is who planted the garden of bruises on Karlie’s face.  She doesn’t know if it’s a friend, or a partner, or an ex, or a parent, or what.  But someone is leaving Karlie Kloss bruised and battered and wilted, and Taylor doesn’t like it.

The logical thing is to report it to the police or something.  And she really does think about it, juggling her phone between her hands on top of her guitar.  But she knows if she does, Karlie will be angry and will never speak to her again, or if the police don’t do anything it’ll get worse.  Taylor doesn’t want that, and she doesn’t want to wreck the potential this strange new friendship has.

So she does the next best thing.

She calls her mom.

Andrea answers with her usual happiness to hear from her daughter, and Taylor doesn’t even bother with small talk.  She launches into the entire story, from the night at the bar to the morning, not leaving anything out because she trusts her mom with everything.  Andrea listens without much comment until Taylor takes a heavy breath and then says, “Okay.  I’m finished now, I think.”

“Are you sure you know what your intentions are, Taylor?” Andrea asks in response, and it’s not the question Taylor wants to hear.  Because since James had asked, she’d been questioning her own intentions.  Is it guilt?  Is it obligation?  Or does she genuinely want to help?  She thought she knew, but everyone questioning is making her doubt herself.  

She pauses before she answers, collecting her words the best she can.  She thinks back to that morning, to the way it had made her chest hurt to see Karlie’s head dip nervously as she wiped at the wound on her mouth.  She thinks of the way she hadn’t wanted to let go of Karlie’s hand, or the way she genuinely trusted her not to go tell TMZ that Taylor likes the fairer sex on occasion.  So she manages to sound mostly confident when she says, “I like her.  I want to be friends with her.  I’m not doing this just because I feel bad, Mom.”

“Then I would say wait it out.  See if it happens again, or gets worse, and try to get her to talk about it in the process.  It might be something you don’t expect.  And you know if it’s too much to deal with alone you probably need to contact someone who can, even if Karlie will be upset,” Andrea explains, and she’s gentle about it, because she knows Taylor gets stressed out when people give her strict orders about stressful situations.

Taylor runs her hand through her hair, “You’re probably right.  I just want to handle this well, you know?”

“I know, sweetheart.  You always do.”

Taylor talks with her mother a while longer, but when Karlie comes out of the shower, Taylor says her goodbyes and hangs up.  She tries not to stare at the girl in front of her, with her ripped boyfriend jeans and her button down opened halfway down her chest and rolled up to her elbows to reveal her tattoos.  

And all she can hope is that she really is making a good choice.

Karlie looks down at her phone, thumbing through her notifications.  She sees a couple of texts from Cara, pictures of Sunny and of dumb TV shows.  And it serves as a strange sort of reality check, that her real life is so far away from this one.  Her bruise on her jaw hasn’t been hurting, but as she glances at Taylor taking a video of Olivia trying to use the remote, it starts to throb deep in her face.  She thinks of the fight, of the way the other guy had punched her and she’d gotten so angry she’d elbowed him and shattered his nose.  She thinks about how different that is from what Taylor believes of her, and she feels awful for it.

Her mouth opens, jaw unhinging awkwardly.  She doesn’t know how to word it, how to explain or apologize.  Her throat works under her skin, and she lets out a shuddering breath.  Apparently it’s louder than she thinks, because Taylor turns and looks at her, head tilting in concern, “You okay?”

“Yeah!  Yeah, I’m fine,” Karlie says, reaching to rub at her mouth but then firmly tucking her hand in her lap, “I just...wanted to talk about something?  About why I got so uncomfortable earlier, I guess.” The words sound clunky.  She can’t look at Taylor’s face as she says the words, and her own feels painfully hot.  She hears Taylor shift closer, but she doesn’t bother looking up to see how close, exactly, the older girl has gotten.

“Go right ahead,” Taylor says, and Karlie hears a gentleness in her tone, like she’s wrapping a blanket around Karlie’s shoulders with her words.  It just pumps her full of even more acidic, burning guilt, and she closes her eyes, trying to breathe in and steady herself by expanding her lungs inside the cage of her ribs.

“I, um,” A pause, and Karlie can’t get the words out no matter how hard she tries, “I didn’t grow up with a whole lot of money.  Like, not nearly as much as you.  So it’s sort of awkward for me, to be around all of this.”

It’s not what she wants to say at all, and she doesn’t even hear Taylor’s response past the blood roaring in her ears.

_ God, Karlie, why do you always fuck  _ everything  _ up? _


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit man, this is where the fun really begins.

Three days have passed, and Karlie feels more comfortable in Taylor’s apartment than she does in Cara’s.  It’s so strange, how easily she’s fallen into a vortex of comfort here, but it’s easy to attribute it to Taylor, who is respectful and friendly and filled up to overflowing with a dry sense of humor.  They’ve not left the apartment much at all, settling for cooking or ordering in and binge-watching Netflix. Taylor is obsessive about her TV shows, and it took a struggle and a playful fight over the remote before Karlie managed to convince her to watch Bob’s Burgers (they’d watched two seasons in less than 24 hours, and Taylor keeps doing this thing where she bites back her laughter and tries to look bored whenever she realizes Karlie has caught her enjoying it).

They banter well, and they share a lot of interests (especially in authors and poets).  Their conversations rarely ever feel awkward and heavy anymore, and Karlie is more uncomfortable with how easy it all is than she ever was first walking into Taylor’s apartment.  It’s nice. It’s safe.  But she still feels guilty as all hell for not being able to make her mouth speak what it’s supposed to.  She still feels like she’s taking advantage every time Taylor does something like letting her use one of her things, or not caring when Karlie raids the pantry for snacks.  This is something Karlie will  _ never _ be able to give back.  She will never be able to return kindness like this.

And here she is, taking advantage of it.  She feels gluttonous and greedy, like she’s leeching off of Taylor’s existence.  She’s grateful, of course.  She’s cooked most of their meals and done the dishes and cleaned up after herself and been polite like her mother taught her to, but as it stands, she’s still lying, and no matter how solid her manners are, she’s taking advantage.  She feels gross.  If she knew herself and what she was doing right now, she would probably punch herself right in the face.  

At least as soon as she either admits the truth or Taylor kicks her out, she can get someone else to do that for her.

She’s had multiple opportunities to tell the truth, but every time she tries her tongue feels sticky in her mouth, and she’s reminded of that documentary she watched about how some sharks have tongues but can’t move them.  She wants to be honest.  She really does.  But her body fights her brain’s attempts at stringing the truth together, and even when she’s tried to write a note her pen had just carved scribbles into the paper.

A part of her knows it’s because she doesn’t want to break this spell, this strange sort of magical aura that surrounds them here, like they’re in a snowglobe.  Telling the truth would be breaking the glass, and everything would spill out everywhere.  And that scares Karlie, because she’s become comfortable here, and she’s in love with this fever dream of spending almost an entire week with Taylor Swift.  It’s been perfect and beautiful and like a goddam movie, and Karlie feels better maintaining the desert mirage where Taylor genuinely likes having her around, and seems to enjoy their playful banter and obvious flirting as much as Karlie does.

It’s so easy to tumble further and further into the pit of dishonesty, swallowing her up like a gulping mouth.

Karlie is snapped out of her thoughts by Taylor’s voice, breaking through the background noise of Bob’s Burgers.  The tone is excited, and Karlie looks over and sees Taylor has obviously just suddenly come up with this idea, “Let’s play Scrabble!”

“...Scrabble?” Karlie questions.  She’s not nearly as enthusiastic as Taylor is about it.  She’s never been the biggest fan of board games.  When she was little she was often guilty of flipping the board when she lost, or beating up her siblings when they beat her.  Her competitive streak exists still, and she’s a little worried about controlling it and  _ not _ sweeping Taylor’s tiles off the board if she starts to lose.

Taylor is beaming so hard that Karlie can see all of her teeth, and her blue eyes look like tiny crystals caught in the jail cell between her eyelashes, “Yeah!  Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Says the person who makes a living creating lyrical masterpieces,” Karlie grumbles, “You’ll destroy me.” She looks up a little bit miserably as Taylor gives her a cheeky grin and goes to the closet to dig out the Scrabble board anyway, setting the box down neatly on the coffee table and lifting the lid like she’s revealing the actual Jesus Christ to Karlie.

Her nose is scrunched up a little bit in a way that makes Karlie’s head feel slightly filled with cotton, and she looks away quickly as she glances down at the way Taylor daintily sorts out all of the game pieces, “You’re just scared.”

“I don’t like to lose,” Karlie’s voice is serious, because it’s true.  She hates losing, with a burning passion.  That’s why her streak at fight club rests so high.  That’s why she does everything she possibly can herself, even when she needs help.  That’s why she was always angry after lost soccer games as a kid, and why she threw the cards at Kimby’s face whenever she didn’t beat her younger sister at stupid shit like Go Fish.  Losing is failure, and failure is not something that Karlie is comfortable with.  

She looks up at Taylor’s face again, and the blonde is still smiling, but there’s a hint of something darker to it.  Karlie recognizes the challenge there, and with a sigh, she reaches into the bag to pull out her letter tiles.  She somehow manages to end up with a Q and an X at the very start of the game, and nothing to work with them.   _ Great _ .

Fifteen minutes later, Taylor is beating Karlie by a stark 95 points, and the taller girl is embarrassed and annoyed all at once.  Large, neat words litter the board, all from Taylor’s tiles, and Karlie is left with no room to play much of anything.  Annoyed, she sweeps the board, much to Taylor’s horror, “Karlie Kloss!  You can’t just destroy a game of Scrabble like that!  It was innocent.  It was still a child.  How could you cut its life short like this?”

“We both knew you were going to win.  So we’re trying this again--my way,”  Karlie replies, shuffling the tiles again and picking some of them.  Taylor does the same, looking extremely entertained and extremely confused all at once.  Karlie taps her chin as she looks between her tiles and the board, and then with a proud grin, she lays down the word  _ Jizz _ .

It takes Taylor a second to realize it, and then she bursts into laughter, “Oh, so we’re playing it  _ that _ way, huh?” 

“Dunno.  Can Princess Vanilla handle it?” Karlie retorts, and Taylor looks just offended enough to make the younger woman laugh.

“I’m not vanilla,” Taylor argues, and that makes Karlie laugh harder, because somehow she can’t picture the young woman in front of her as anything more than pure vanilla ice cream, the way it gets a little soft right before it melts completely.  The ultimate vanilla.   Vanilla extract straight from the bottle.

With an indignant huff, Taylor scans her tiles for a long time, as though debating which word she can play to top Karlie’s.  In the end, she simply uses the letter I that Karlie already set down to play off the word  _ dick _ .  And that’s when their civil game of Scrabble becomes a battle, curses and sex terms scattered all over the board in some sort of haphazard NSFW warzone.  They’re nearly tied, and then Karlie neatly plays the word  _ queef _ on a triple word score section, successfully boosting her final total over 200 and granting her victory.

“Sorry, princess.  You were too vanilla for this type of Scrabble,” Karlie says, trying not to laugh at how shocked Taylor looks that she’s  _ lost _ .  Karlie wonders how long it has been since someone has taken Taylor’s title of reigning Scrabble queen away from her, and she’s a little bit proud of herself.

Taylor’s the one to sweep the board this time, grumpily folding it up and plopping it into the box with far less reverence than she had taken it out with.  Her voice is a low mumble into the air below her lips, “Oh my god.  I’m not  _ that _ vanilla.”

“What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done then?” Karlie challenges, not really expecting an answer but enjoying giving Taylor a hard time.  The older woman is better with casual snark and sarcasm than Karlie is, so it’s entertaining to be dominating that side of the conversation for once.  Taylor crosses her ups, jutting her nose up in an over-exaggerated diva move.

“Now you’re really sounding like someone from TMZ,” And that’s all Karlie needs to know that, yeah, Taylor Swift is definitely vanilla.

The brunette is still biting back a laugh, and Taylor huffs, “Alright, what’s the kinkiest thing  _ you’ve _ ever done, then?  You’re literally being so mean to me.  I deserve an answer.” Karlie can’t tell if Taylor is being serious or not, and as she scans rapidly back through her sexual repertoire, she realizes exactly who she’s having this conversation with.

So instead of responding with words, she just gives a tiny, faux-innocent smile.  Taylor huffs again, picking up the Scrabble box to put it back in the closet.  She doesn’t sit back down, looking down at Karlie with exaggerated disdain (but her eyes, oh her pretty blue eyes still look just as sparkly), “I have to go get ready for a business meeting with my record label.”

And with that, she spins neatly on her heel to head up the stairs.  After her retreating form, Karlie calls, “Do you want a brownie with your vanilla ice cream?”

“I’ll tell you where you can put your vanilla ice cream!” Taylor yells back, and then there’s the sound of the bedroom door closing, leaving Karlie alone to laugh about the absurdity of the entire conversation.

* * *

 

Karlie is still in her pajamas an hour after Taylor leaves (and they aren’t even  _ her _ pajamas), which is far less productive than she likes to be.  She feels lazy, so she ventures up to the guest bedroom, digging through her backpack.  There’s a lot in it for a small bag, but not much at all when it comes to a wardrobe.  She lifts things to her nose and inhales to check if they’re wearable, and nothing is really all that acceptable.  

As she sits back on her heels, shuffling through change to see if she can afford the laundromat later, she realizes how pathetic all of this is.  She’s in Taylor Swift’s guest bedroom, the one with the wall holding the massive walk-in closet, and she’s scrambling for loose change.  She’s worn the same bra four days in a row.  She’s on her last pair of clean underwear.  There’s a total of $5.35 in her wallet, and she knows she doesn’t have anything that’ll really fight off the cold front that’s currently breathing over New York City.

_ I don’t belong here _ , Karlie realizes, as her knees press into the plush carpet.  

_ I don’t belong here _ , Karlie realizes, as she states as the bedspread that probably cost more than Cara’s rent.  

_ I don’t belong here _ .

Karlie dresses in her fight club clothes and hopes they aren’t too disgusting, then she sits on the floor and tries not to cry.

She has to tell Taylor.  She doesn’t belong here, and she can’t keep pretending that she’ll somehow be able to make her puzzle pieces fit.

* * *

 

Karlie is loitering in the foyer when she hears the doorknob rattling from keys being inserted.   She feels it shaking in her chest, and it makes it hard to breathe, her ribs pressing back against her lungs.  Her palms feel slick and slippery, and wiping them on her leggings isn’t even effective.  She’s scared.  But she’s even more embarrassed.  That’s worse.

“Hey!” Taylor greets cheerily when she walks in the door, shrugging off her coat to hang it on the hook and plopping her purse on to the door-side table.  She doesn’t even glance at Karlie while she slips off her heels, immediately shrinking to a few inches below Karlie’s height.  Then finally she turns her head, her smile turning with it.  The vivid expression crumbles a little at the sight of what Karlie must look like.  She’s sure she’s pale and flushed all at once, “Is everything alright?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost.  ...Are there ghosts in this apartment?  It  _ is  _ kind of old.”

“Taylor--” Karlie interjects, but her voice sounds weak.  Her jaw quivers, and she wonders why  _ this _ is scaring her.  She’s been in more knife fights than she is years old, and she had faced those situations with a smirk and her head held high.   Now her neck hurts with the strain of holding her head up to meet Taylor’s confused blue eyes, “I need to talk to you.”  She motions to the mostly-faded wounds on her face, “About this.”

Taylor pauses for a second, then her eyes widen, “Oh!  Uh, do you want to sit down somewhere?”

Karlie feels awful at the relief on Taylor’s face, knowing the singer thinks she’s finally gotten Karlie comfortable enough for the truth.  And this is the truth, but Karlie’s not comfortable with it.  She feels like she has nails carving up her throat, “No, uh, can we just stay right here?”  Taylor looks confused, but she nods, and before she can actually respond verbally, Karlie forces the words painfully out of her mouth so she’ll stop choking on them, “No one did this to me.  Okay, well, they did.  But...it wasn’t non-consensual.”

Taylor looks extremely confused then, and her voice drops into a low timbre like she’s telling Karlie a secret in a middle school classroom, “Is this like, a fetish or something?”

The question catches Karlie off guard enough to make Karlie cough out a laugh, and she shakes her head rapidly, “No!  Oh my god.  No.”  She brings her hands up, rubbing them over her face, trying to restore the confidence she’d had 30 seconds ago.  She can feel Taylor’s eyes on her, so she doesn’t frustratedly dig her thumb into her own bruise like she wants to.  Pain usually snaps her back to reality.  She probably shouldn’t try that here, “So, that bar where we met.  Uh, there’s a basement, and there’s a fight club down there.  And I’m in it.  And that’s how this happened.  Fight club.”

“...Excuse me?” Taylor asks.  She takes a step back, and her eyes are less wide now, a little bit more steel-colored than ocean.  Karlie realizes she’s annoyed now, that it’s sunk into her that Karlie has been lying to her for basically a week, using her kindness and her home due to her own selfishness.  Karlie debates just picking up her bag and leaving right now, letting Taylor hate her, but the blonde speaks before she can, “So was this past week a game for you or something?  What else have you not told me about?  Should I  _ actually _ be afraid of you going to TMZ with the shit I told you?”

Karlie can’t leave, not with that accusation in the air.  There’s fear in Taylor’s voice, beating hard in time to the panic in Karlie’s chest.  She shakes her head firmly, gasping in a heavy breath and trying to pick her next words more carefully than she’s ever spoken anything else, “No.  God, no.  Look I like...I don’t have a concrete place to live.  I share my friend Cara’s apartment sometimes.  But that day we ran into each other?  I was looking for somewhere to stay warm for a while in the subway that night, alright?  So you were there offering me somewhere warm to sleep and I just...I accepted it.  I shouldn’t have, or I should have told you that day, but I was just so happy to be in a real fucking bed, man.  And I’ve loved your music since the first album, so the fact it was you...I don’t know.  I don’t fucking know.  It was a bad choice.  I fucked up.  But you can trust me, alright?  I promise I won’t sell your secrets.  You should trust that, considering I have like...a goddamn five dollar bill in my wallet right now, and if I had awful intentions I would be seeing exactly how much I could get off of you.”

Karlie’s eyes burn, and she wipes at them forcefully so that whatever is pooling in them doesn’t fall.  She catches herself in time, but it still burns.  The corners of her mouth still feel heavy.

Taylor doesn’t speak for a long time, eyes flickering over Karlie’s face, and the taller girl feels incredibly exposed.  Her ribs feel like they’ve been battered into cracking open by the amount of honesty Karlie has poured out, something she hasn’t done in years.  She wonders if she’s bleeding on Taylor’s nice hardwood floors from the force of it.  She bites her lip, worrying at the still-tender flesh, and then she breathes out, almost a whisper, “I’m really sorry, Taylor.”

Karlie is still staring at the floor when she feels Taylor’s arms wrap around her, pulling her in, tight against the wings of her shoulder-blades.  Taylor’s head rests on Karlie’s shoulder, her breath warm, “I’m trusting you right now, okay?  I’m kind of mad at you, but I’m going to trust you.”  She gives another tight squeeze, and her words drop to a whisper, “Please don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t,” Karlie murmurs back.  She feels cold when Taylor pulls away, but she’s glad to see the anger in Taylor’s face has dissipated some.  She looks annoyed, but the initial maelstrom has calmed and Karlie tries to smile at her.  It feels mostly like an awkwardly-slanted bruise, but she tries, and she reaches for her backpack, “I feel like, in light of this conversation, I need to leave.  I’ve been taking advantage of your kindness and I feel like shit about that.”

Taylor looks like she’s debating something, and it comes out when she asks, “Do you even have somewhere to sleep tonight?”

_ The subway, probably _ .  “Yeah, I’ll sleep on Cara’s couch.  She’s going to the UK for a couple of months so I’ll be living in her house while she’s gone a few days from now anyway,” It’s not entirely untrue.  She is house-sitting, starting within the next couple of days.  But she’s too proud of sleep at Cara’s while the British girl is home, and she’s also too nervous to be around all of that alcohol when she hasn’t had a drink in nearly six months.   It could lead her down a dangerous rewind of past mistakes.  So the subway is safer, in a sense.

This is a lie she feels okay telling, though.

Taylor nods, a little jerkily, then she holds out her hand suddenly, “Can I have your phone?  I mean, not  _ have it _ .  I just want to put my number in it.”

Karlie is startled.  After all of this, Taylor still wants the potential of contact between them.  Karlie is stunned for a moment, and she only moves to get her phone from her bag when Taylor awkwardly begins to pull her hand back.  Karlie slaps the device into Taylor’s palm perhaps a bit too roughly, but the blonde smiles when Karlie does it, tapping in her passcode quickly so she can pull up a new contact for Taylor to enter.

The girl does, putting a plethora of cat emojis next to her own name, then hands it back, “Maybe we can bake together again sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Karlie says, even though as she slides her phone back into her backpack, she realizes she probably won’t ever contact Taylor again.

“Stay safe, okay?” Taylor tells her, as Karlie tugs open the apartment door.  She hasn’t moved from her spot, but she’s watching Karlie leave, and she’s smiling in a way that’s more reminiscent of the others Karlie has seen over the past few days.  

Karlie smiles back, not showing her teeth because she’s sure that smile will betray how hard it is for her to leave, “I’ll do my best.”

The door clicks firmly closed behind her.

* * *

 

“YOU’VE BEEN  _ WHERE?!? _ ” Cara is literally shouting.  Sunny looks up from his spot on the rug, ears twitching in annoyance at her volume.  Karlie is just embarrassed, and still feels a little bit raw about all of it.  She’s busy thinking about the cold tile she’ll be sleeping on tonight, and the depressing, dim lighting of the women’s shelter she’ll have to go to in a couple of days in order to shower again.  

Karlie sighs, tired and not in the best mood to deal with Cara’s screaming, “Yes.  I’ve been with Taylor Swift.  She invited me to her apartment because she saw the bruises and thought I was like...being abused or something.”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST GET A FUCKING U-HAUL AND MOVE IN?” Cara shouts, looking absolutely horrified at Karlie’s decision making.  A headache starts to throb behind Karlie’s temples, and she aggressively digs her thumbs into them in an attempt to force it to go away.

“Because I felt like shit lying to her, Cara.  So I told her the truth and I left,” Karlie doesn’t feel guilty anymore, at least, but she already kind of misses that she won’t be bantering with someone while she cooks dinner tonight.  She’s got to go win a few rounds if she even  _ wants _ to eat something tonight.  

Reality is a bitch, and it’s currently hitting her over and over like a metal baseball bat.  Karlie feels bruised and swollen, even though all of her bruises are nothing but echoes at this point.  

“The one time you aren’t willing to lie through your teeth.  Bloody hell, Kloss,” Cara sits down across from her, finally realizing that Karlie isn’t all that enthusiastic about their conversation.  She rests her chin in her hand, “You look worse than that time that guy...what’s his name?  Sam? tried to pay you with--”

“Cara, shut the fuck up,” Karlie snaps, not wanting to relive the memory she knows Cara is about to bring up.  The other girl lifts her hands in surrender, and Karlie sighs out sharply, drumming her fingers on the table, “She gave me her phone number.”

There’s an impressed gleam in the blonde’s eyes at that, and the hint of a smirk, “Did she now?”

“I’m probably not going to use it,” Karlie replies, and Cara’s smirk doesn’t fade.  She expected the same horror Cara had shown at Karlie willingly leaving Taylor’s place.  She’s a little more afraid of the amusement at the moment.

“If you meant that then you would have deleted it,” Cara points out, “in fact, you would delete it right now if I said I don’t believe you.”

Karlie knows it’s true, and that pisses her off.  Roughly, she shoves away from the table, going over to Cara’s dryer to fish out her now-clean clothes.  She picks the coat up off the top of the machine, one Cara had loaned her without even asking as soon as Karlie said where she was sleeping for the next couple of days.  She stuffs all of her things neatly into her backpack, listening to Cara’s amused laughter in the background.

Finally, Karlie turns around, “I’m going to fight tonight.  I need the cash.  Are you okay with still keeping Sunny until I come to take care of the place in a couple of days?”

“Leaving me alone with the hellhound again.  You’re just using me, aren’t you?” Cara asks, entirely dramatically.  Karlie rolls her eyes.  She tugs the coat on over her leggings and her sports bra, zipping it up just below her chin.  Then she walks over to the table, leaning down and pressing a kiss firmly on Cara’s mouth.  It’s brief, but their boundary lines have always been a sort of wobbly, half-erased mess anyway.

Cara grins up at her, probably a little bit drunk, like always.  Karlie shakes her head good-naturedly, turning to head out and beat the shit out of a few idiots for extra cash.  Behind her, Cara calls out, “Next time maybe you should do something a little bit different with that mouth of yours to thank me, Klossy.”

For the first time since her conversation with Taylor, Karlie laughs, and she punctuates it by gracelessly flipping Cara off.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there everyone! A few extra notes for this chapter: I'm leaving the country for a month starting the 17th, so I'm trying to write through at least chapter 10 by then. I have chapter 7 and part of 8 written, and I'll post 7 the day before I leave. Then the others will be posted by one of my friends while I'm gone, so just know that the chapters after this probably won't be proofread as well, and some of them might be shorter, because I want you guys to have updates even though I won't have a whole lot of time to write.

The music from upstairs throbs in a distorted way into the basement of the bar, echoing against the walls and pounding in Karlie’s skull.  She’s in the back corner, stretching her arms across her chest to loosen up her shoulders.  They’re not even what’s tense.  In fact, all of her tension is focused on her right knee (not that that’s anything new--the stupid joint has been bothering her for the better portion of four years).  

But obviously she’s not going to focus on stretching it and massaging out what tension she can.  Because there are people watching her, and she can’t afford for them to know the weak point on her body.  She knows better than that.  And she also knows if someone takes out her stupid knee she’ll end up with a hospital bill she can’t even begin to think about affording.

The brief thought of money pulls her back to Taylor.  She’d left three days ago, and she misses the house and all of its space.  She misses the mattress that had hugged her body and the giant kitchen she could get lost in.  And she misses Taylor, too, but she doesn’t like to dwell on that.  She still has the other girl’s number in her phone, but she doesn’t feel like she’s the best person to be around Taylor Swift.  Too rough.  Too vicious.  A wolf when Taylor is a house cat perched on a backyard fence.

She feels better rested for this fight than she usually does, however.  Cara had left for London two days before, and Karlie had started her house sitting duties.  Cara’s couch wasn’t great, but god was it infinitely better than a subway tunnel.  She feels like her bones are sort of aligning the way they’re supposed to again, and it makes her consider getting a job so she can afford her own place even if the only furniture is a futon.  But with her track record...she doesn’t really have much confidence that the job applications she turns in will be accepted, and even then, it’ll probably take stacking three jobs and never sleeping to afford a fucking broom closet in this city.

Fever dreams, Karlie.  Fever dreams.

With a sigh, she opens her mouth and aligns her mouthguard.  Someone will laugh at her for it, and she’ll laugh right back about their dentistry bill when their teeth get knocked down their fucking throat.  She cracks her knuckles and then stands at the edge of the ring, waiting for the current fight to finish before she’ll step in.

The men are sloppy, throwing punches like teenagers egging a house.  There’s no finesse whatsoever, just a whirlwind of cluttered, jumbled motions, and Karlie rolls her eyes and barks out as clearly as she can through the guard against her top row of teeth, “Learn how to throw a hook or get the fuck out of the ring!”  A few shouts of agreement follow, and it distracts one of the men for the few seconds long enough for the other to knock him out cold, his jaw making a cracking sound as he hits the floor.  It’s a fluke.  She knows the winner still has broken fingers of his own after that hit of bone against bone.  But she lets him have it, deciding not to taunt him as he walks out even though she easily could.

She steps in to take his place, hands on her hips.  She’s thin and bony and female, so she doesn’t look particularly intimidating.  But the regulars here call her Knockout for a reason, and no one jumps to step into the ring against her.  It makes pride swell in her chest that she’s made such a name for herself, watering the garden of her ego perhaps a little too much.  But she also really needs money to eat, so she huffs out a hot, annoyed breath through her nose.

Finally, someone steps in across from her.  He’s young, probably around Karlie’s age, and has wild red hair and a crooked nose.  He’s never been here before, and he’s a couple of inches shorter than Karlie is, but he holds himself like a fighter, and his nose is a history book of old breaks.  He has experience, and she falls back warily into her fighting stance, elbows tucked in to guard her torso, fists protecting her jaw.  It’s up to movement to do the rest, because at 6’2” she’s got a lot of target to protect.

The makeshift ref calls for them to fight, and Karlie lets her feet shuffle her around the ring.  She doesn’t strike first.  That’s not how she works.  It used to be, when she was young and dumb and fueled by rage.  And those were the times she came home with concussions and bones weeping with bruises and even fractures.  She’s learned by now.  So green eyes turn the color of pines as she watches him, following his motions carefully.

He throws the first punch, a solid jab, and she manages to duck under it and counter to his ribs.  She’s impressed by how quickly he drops his elbow to take the main force of her blow, but she doesn’t let that show.  She remains impassive as she skips back out of reach, throwing a hard roundhouse as she exists.  This catches his shoulder, sending him stumbling, but he uses the sideways momentum to hook her jaw with surprising force.

She sees the galaxy start to churn in front of her, and she knows she needs to gather herself back to Earth for a second.  Her jaw doesn’t hurt all that much because of the adrenaline pumping the pain away from her face, but her skull still rattles with the sudden change in equilibrium.  She shakes her head firmly, trying to realign her senses and make the stars stop orbiting, dodging blows as she does.

It pisses her off that a rookie in this club even managed to get a hit on her, and that people are suddenly betting on him because he managed to temporarily knock her head crooked.  That’s not how this works.  She doesn’t  _ lose _ .  

Lips pull back from her teeth.  She’s reminded of the wolves she used to love to watch at the zoo, how they’d fight with their siblings, and how it was always measured.  But sometimes it went too far, and when one of them wanted the fight to stop, teeth would be bared, a low growl sliced out between them.  A surprisingly similar sound escapes her now, as she stands in front of him all bare hands and calloused knuckles and sharp teeth caged by her mouth guard.

She’s furious when her hand shoots out, a solid punch.  Her knuckles graze his cheek hard enough to cleave his skin open, like butter.  Where it splits, blood hums to the surface.  She doesn’t focus on it that much, because her palm opens, and on the back-pull of her strike, she knots her fingers into the hair at the back of his skull.  It jerks him into her, and the sudden motion suddenly knocks his balance awry.  The kick he was aiming at her thigh connects his shin with her hipbone instead, which aches, but she’s sure it hurts him more.

Her nails dig into the dry flesh of his scalp and she yanks him in so she can drive her knee into his ribs.  Once, twice, three times.  The last strike, she’s fairly certain she feels something give.  The blood in her skull is roaring like a river past her ears, too loud for her to hear if there’s any sort of snap.  She knows she’s done damage, though, and she also knows just as well she could push away, catch her breath for a moment.  But Cara had told her once that once she’s in the ring, Karlie fights like she’s fighting for her life.

Technically, she is.

So, she brings her heel into his achilles tendon, barely recognizing that he’s striking at her, and the edge of his fist boxes her ear again.  Adrenaline has taken over and made her solid and steady.  She’ll be dizzy and aching in an hour, worse in the morning.  But for now, she’s perfectly fine.  So when her heel hits home, he hits the floor.  They have a thin mat spread out, but it’s barely anything on cement, and his breath chokes from his throat when his back hits.  Karlie plants her foot firm on his throat, not enough to choke him.  Just enough to fight his inhalations to the point where he can’t get back up.

The ref counts it out, and she doesn’t let up for a solid two seconds after 20 is called.  Then she steps back, popping out her guard to chug down half of a water bottle.  There’s sweat sticking her shirt to her skin, and she’s breathing so hard her ribs hurt, but she’s just won her 31st fight in a row over the past couple of months, and she feels like a pride of lionesses packed under girl-skin.

So she steps back in, clenching her mouthguard in her fist so she can speak clearly, “Who’s next?”

* * *

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Karlie says.

The girl she’s speaking to looks up, wide-eyed.  Barbie, or at least that’s her nickname. Eighteen, Karlie remembers.  The youngest they allow in this place.  There’s a thick X drawn in marker on the back of her hand from upstairs.  Not old enough to drink, but old enough to fight.  It doesn’t make much sense to Karlie, but she doesn’t make the rules here, and she figures the least she can do is make sure that the younger girls don’t get fucked over because of them.  She knows how easy it is.  She’s been in this system since a week after she turned 20.  She’s made all of the mistakes she can possibly make in the past 3 and a half years.

So, she knows what’s happening here.  An older man is whispering to Barbie with a leering grin and a wad of cash clenched in his fist.  Karlie knows what it means.  Sacrifice your body for a night, get a few hundred dollars.  That’s the song being sung.  For a girl in a desperate situation, it seems like the perfect melody.  It’s a cadence Karlie is familiar with.  She knows all of the steps to that dance. She can still feel them in her bones sometimes.

And she knows how it usually ends, so she grips Barbie’s arm lightly with her still-bloody fingers and murmurs, “Look, it’s not worth it.  The guys here?  They’ll take you back and fuck you, and then kick you out without giving you even a fucking penny.  Don’t trust it.  The only money you’re gonna get here is in that ring.  Anything else is a goddamn scam, okay?”

“Look, lady, I don’t think this is any of your fuckin’ busi--”

Karlie turns to the man, and cuts him off, “My name is  _ Knockout _ .  You want a good time, go find some whore upstairs.  We don’t do that shit down here, and if you keep it up, you and me can have it out in the ring.  Got it?”

They make eye contact for a long moment, but eventually he mumbles some choice insults, stuffs his cash back into his pocket, and trails back upstairs into the bar.  Barbie is still looking at her, pupils blown huge, “Do you really think he would have done that?”

“Trust me,” Karlie replies.  

Barbie’s lips are chapped, and she licks them nervously as she glances out at the ring.  There’s something a little wild in the gaze, and Karlie sees something familiar in it.  She knows not all of Barbie’s winnings will be spent on responsible purchases.  That’s something she can’t control.  But she can keep the girl from getting hurt worse than necessary.  So she digs her hand wraps out of her bag.  She has a few sets, and she rarely ever uses them anymore anyway because she knows how to maintain good posture in her wrists.  But Barbie is new here, and fights a little bit like a wildfire.  So Karlie grips her hands, and she wraps them quickly and tightly, making sure they’re secured, “There.  Keep them, okay?”

There’s a surprised little nod, and a whisper, “Thanks, Knockout.” She recognizes the confusion in it, too.  There are several girls like them here.  The kind that aren’t used to small gestures of kindness.

Karlie smiles at her tightly, “Go kill it out there.  And remember, don’t go home with anyone and expect them to actually pay you.”

She doesn’t stay to watch Barbie fight.  She’s done what she can for her.  

There’s only so much you can do to help when you’re not even sure how to help yourself.

* * *

 

Karlie is sprawled out on Cara’s couch, Sunny snoring softly on the floor next to her.  Cara’s laptop is propped on her lap, and Karlie is watching coding videos with rapt attention, studying the combinations of letters and numbers and terms and the results they produce.  In another window, she has the program open, and every few moments she pauses the lesson and attempts to mimic what’s just been shown.  It’s easy for her, translating lines of text that create actions on the computer screen.  It’s something that’s always been simple.  Like fighting, it comes fluently, like it’s already there inside of her and she’s just having to scrape the dust off.

It’s a good distraction, but her head is still throbbing from her earlier fights, and it’s hard to ignore it completely.  She doesn’t take painkillers.  She hasn’t in a few months, firmly refusing that sort of treatment for her pain.  So unfortunately, the longer she stares at the screen, the worse the throbbing gets, until it feels like the entire lining of her skull is inflamed.  

A low sigh filters out from between Karlie’s teeth, and she closes the laptop.  It bathes the room in a warm layer of darkness, except for the tv she has on for company, the sound muted.  Karlie rolls over then, sinking into the couch cushions.  She could sleep in the bed, but it feels weird to do so, and it feels too much like a reward she doesn’t deserve.  And besides, couches are better than subway tiles any day, so this is sort of a luxury in itself.

Sunny climbs lazily up next to her, crushing her against the back of the couch as he tries to make room for himself.  He’s warm and his breathing is a comforting rhythm, so she doesn’t mind that he’s left her basically no room.  One hand trails through his dark, soft fur, and the other pats around for her phone until she finds it stuck between two couch cushions.

Her thumb moves to unlock it, and she realizes that Taylor’s contact is pulled up.  She’d gone to text her earlier but decided against it.  She makes the same choice now, backing out of the screen and back to the home one instead, opening up 2048 to absently swipe at the tiles in an attempt to calm her brain for sleep.  It doesn’t work, though, because she’s left thinking of Taylor again.  She misses that bed.  She misses their banter, and their cookies, and the way Taylor’s eyes had turned into the ocean when she smiled.

She misses the brief, fleeting feeling of  _ rightness  _ that she’d felt wrapped up in Taylor’s arms when the older girl had hugged her.  

Annoyed, she wipes her hand over her mouth roughly, glad that it isn’t split this time as she does it, “Sunny, what did I do to fuck my life up so bad?”

The dog doesn’t answer.  He’s not a man of words.  Her brain is happy to take his place though.  In a matter of seconds, she is tied up and dragged down a viciously sharp pathway of memories.  Of college.  Of a sloppy turn.  Of her knee screaming.  Of the series of mistakes that had followed.  They rip up her skin like she’s fallen into gravel, and she regrets questioning at all.

Her head aches even more now that she’s dug herself into this hole of negative thought.

And her brain can’t help but tell her she probably deserves it.

* * *

 

The television takes up the entire wall of the living room, the screen higher definition that what seems possible.  It’s loud, painfully loud, and the volume shakes the entire house like an earthquake.  A grammy award falls off a shelf and breaks into two pieces.  A glass coffee table shatters all over the floor.

Taylor is standing in the middle of the living room.  She’s frozen in place, the floor sucking her feet in up to the ankles so she can’t move them even if she wanted to.  Her bones have turned to marble.  She can’t lift her arms, or turn her head.  She’s a statue, aimed at the massive television, and all she can do is let her eyes flicker over the screen in front of her.  

The channels change rapidly, but they don’t need to hesitate long for Taylor to grasp what’s being said.  All of the reports are about her.  They’re about her album flopping.  They’re about her fans changing their urls and twitter handles to jokes about her, to horrible names about her.  They’re about her concerts not selling tickets.  They’re about her performing in massive arenas to crowds of less than 100.

There’s no explanation.  There’s no reasoning.  Every news article simply lists her as a failure, an embarrassment to herself and to music as a whole.  She watches her world fall apart.  She watches a video of her Grammys being revoked.  As she stands there, her eyes soaking in the gossip, the tabloids flashed on the screen, she feels a panic attack building.  But her body can’t move enough to hyperventilate.  She can’t move enough to shake, or to cry.  She’s frozen, and the panic builds and builds but there’s no outlet.

She can’t even scream, even though she feels it building to the point it hurts.  Nothing has hurt worse.  But she can’t do it.  She can’t even close her eyes.  Her bones feel like they’re splitting.  Everything feels like it’s going to explode inside of her.

And then she feels something different.  It’s warm, settling against her back.  She feels it slipping beneath her shirt.  And most of all, she watches as it melts the tv.  The screen and the speakers ignite, setting ablaze and melting into a dark ooze in front of her.  As the horrible talk shows fizzle out like fireworks into muted silence, she feels herself relearn how to move.  She feels like she’s melting, like whatever has frozen her is being overpowered.  But the heat that burns her horrors and her nightmares doesn’t burn her.  It’s just warm.  It feels like summer.

She hears a voice graze her ears, “It’s okay.”  It repeats those two words, soft, barely above a whisper.  After a moment, Taylor is pulled back to a bar, to a girl holding her hand while she’s panicking pathetically in a sticky booth.  She’s pulled back to that voice, laughing at her over a Scrabble board.  She’s pulled back to the taste of cookies, to the feeling of safety.

“Karlie,” She breathes out.

A hand touches her shoulder, and the weight is the last comfort she needs to melt completely.  Her body regains its capability of free movement, and Taylor starts to face Karlie as the girl tells her again that she’s okay.

She turns halfway and the light blinds her; and before she can blink to adjust her vision, she wakes up.


End file.
